Gaining confidence dining at Chipotle with Top9+ food allergies and EoE

One of the best things about Chipotle is their focus on serving ‘real food with wholesome ingredients’. The menu and ingredients avoid several top allergens, and are generally standard across all U.S. locations, and many international locations. It’s these standard ingredients that make Chipotle a good destination for many with dietary restrictions (always confirm what is safe for your dietary needs).

Chipotle serving area

The main concern on the Chipotle menu for our family is the presence of dairy (and there’s plenty of it, in many forms: queso, shredded cheese, sour cream, etc.). We’ve worked through the following steps to find a repeatable strategy to safely eat at Chipotle. (Note: this didn’t happen overnight – it took time to get here…)

The steps and tips we have followed to get comfortable to eat safely at Chipotle:

1.        Visit the Chipotle website to confirm what ingredients are safe for you/your family.

2.        Frequent a local Chipotle every now and then at different times of the day and different days of the week. Check it out to see how the location functions. How clean is it typically? How responsive is the staff to questions about ingredients? For example, ask questions to understand how ingredients are prepped; mention you have an allergic family member and talk with staff how/if they can accommodate, etc.

3.        Check out the Spokin app to see if other customers with dietary restrictions have shared reviews about their experiences at a certain Chipotle location (or any restaurant for that matter; we provide reviews often – check out my profile, JFlannery).

4.        Give yourself time to get comfortable with the idea of trying to eat out safely. My husband and I frequented our local Chipotle off and on for a couple years before we attempted to have our son eat there. Was that an excessive amount of time? Maybe, but you do you.

5.        Get a chef card like Equal Eats to list your allergens or trigger foods to share with staff – this is a game changer in my mind. Showing a chef card gets attention and says ‘please pay attention to my needs, this is important.’  It’s also a great tool for teaching your child how to get more confident about sharing their list of allergens (especially if their list is long).

6.        Try to go to a Chipotle when it’s less busy, giving ample time to discuss your/your child’s needs with staff.

First section of the line at a Chipotle

7.        When beginning to place your order, request staff wipe down the line, change their gloves and wash their hands before preparing your order.

8.        If dairy is a concern, order from the first section of the line, where there is minimal dairy (just queso typically). Though in terms of the queso, we do evaluate how messy the queso is every time we order, and make a decision how safe the line appears. The second section of the line has shredded cheese and sour cream – so we skip any items from that second section.

9.        If you have a need to avoid items from the first or second section, you can ask for items from the back, that haven’t been on the line yet, reducing the chance for cross-contact. When in doubt, ask.

10.  Wipe down a table in the dining area before sitting down – you can ask the staff to help if the mess is too much (which happens often).

11.  A super important final tip? If a Chipotle location is just too messy and unkempt – turn around and leave. We most definitely have left a location that hasn’t felt safe. Often we can either find another Chipotle location, or opt to eat food that we may have with us, it’s just smart.

What does my son order?

He orders a burrito bowl (‘to-go’, so it gets a lid), with white or brown rice, black beans, and chicken. He’ll also eat the chips, but skips the tomatoes/salsa because of its proximity to dairy.

What I’d do differently looking in the rearview mirror?:

·      I would not wait as long to attempt to have our son eat at Chipotle -- of course hindsight is 20/20, but the longer you wait, the less time you have to practice (before they’re more independent and navigating on their own – it happens faster than you think!). We started attempting to eat at Chipotle when my son was in high school. It’s really something we should have done sooner.

·      I would skip the covid lockdown – ok, well, yeah this isn’t really anything we could have controlled, but if you’re in a phase of ‘I can’t do this’, you won’t – and covid was a big crutch for us. Shift your mindset just a bit. Maybe it’s dining out and bringing most of the meal, ordering only one item from the line, or just chips, for example.

·       I would have encouraged my son to be more involved with allergen discussions at restaurants. The years leading up to having our son attempt to eat at our local Chipotle, my husband and I would go investigate on our own, without our son. Eventually he joined us and listened in, but having him watch the steps we took to ask questions would have been a valuable learning experience for him early on. Again, hindsight is 20/20. (My inner mom was trying to protect him from disappointment, if we found eating at yet another restaurant wasn’t possible.)

Know that a meal at Chipotle doesn’t need to be a whole meal from Chipotle. You can start by deciding on ONE item to order there and bring the rest of a meal from home. Maybe it’s just chips the first few times, maybe it’s just rice. Then eventually get more comfortable and gain more confidence. (Also, you don’t have to eat in the restaurant if you don’t want to, take it to go, try it from the comforts of home in the beginning.)

Let me know if you tackle Chipotle or have any questions. Good luck — take your time getting comfortable. You got this ;)