Chipotle for Catering?

I love Chipotle! Honestly, their food is better than some of the gross, catered food I've eaten in the past.

Bethie- I totally agree that the fear is excessive, but unfortunately a lot of people DO think of food poisoning when they think of Chipotle, now. My first comment was meant in a joking manner, as I have no personal experience with Chipotle. I'm not as concerned with her guests actually getting sick (although, always a possibility) as I am with guests not eating out of fear or side-eyeing her choice of food, which is more likely.

And Ashley- how small are we talking here? Food safety aside, I'd never want my loved ones to be cooking and working on my wedding day.

Qdoba or bust.

@Ashley - By small wedding you mean just you, FH, and both sets of parents, right?

Personally, it all depends on how casual your reception will be. I'm not a fan of Chipotle.. I like real Mexican. If I want pseudo Mexican, and even pseudo Tex-Mex... I will have Chipotle before I have Taco Bell, which I feel is crappy.

ETA... I love Qdoba, but they aren't around here... SIGH. I'd still go to Moe's Southwest Grill first before Chipotle and Taco Hell.

We're actually thinking of having Moe's or Willy's (same concept but a GA chain) cater for our casual rehearsal dinner, but I wouldn't want it for the wedding.

That said, if your wedding will be casual enough, go for it

In the early stages of wedding planning we threw Chipotle on the table as an option for catering. After looking at the price for it - with no person on site to check on the food/service it - we opted out. We are honestly only paying $1000 more (I know, $1000 is a lot but not in the wedding world) for a delicious caterer of Pizzas, salads and breadsticks. We also know our crowd and know that it fits well with our wedding.

Everyone is different. Not everyone is plated steak or chicken with potatoes. I personally find that boring and honestly rarely get excited about wedding food because its all the same. Think outside of the box and do something fun (and by fun I don't mean get your whole family together and start cooking up your own food for the wedding in grandmas kitchen.) But look at your options other than Chipotle. It's honestly too much money for what it is.

I love chipotle. Really. I do. And I'm only having 15 guests. But if I were catering, I'd still go with a local taco place over a chain. It wouldn't be much more money and the quality and presentation would be better.

For the record, I am 100% for out of the box thinking when it comes to weddings. Not a fan of cookie cutter. But I still think local is better than chain.

Regardless of whether it's appropriate for a wedding, they don't generally provide servers, nice utensils, etc. So you would have to purchase those things separately and hire servers on the side to set up, make sure the display stays neat, and clean up. I briefly considered this same thing and it ended up being roughly the same price for us to just have a full-service catering company do Tex-Mex for us, and it didn't create that "why are we eating fast food at a wedding" feeling. Look into local catering services and also restaurants that offer catering services.

We had a bride at our venue serve her guests Chipotle. I'm personally a huge fan of Chipotle, but as a catering service it's lacking.

Because this couple ordered an enormous amount of food, I do believe they negotiated with the local branch to have it delivered. However they delivered it in large boxes with foil pans inside, as I assume is also how you would end up picking it up day of.

To hold the food at a safe temperature the couple had to provide their own chafing dishes and transferred the food from the foil pans provided into the actual chaffing pans. The amount of trash that built up was staggering, and this couple had hired someone that worked with an official catering company in town to keep everything restocked that evening. It was quite frankly a hot-mess in that department.

Chipotle does provide you with the plastic ware and bowls, but no plates or anything of that nature. The cost per person for catering is also not the same price as if you were to just walk your 60 guests in, have them each order and cover the cost. It's a fairly steep jump up in cost as far as I'm aware.

In our area of the country you can find food of a better quality, with a better service for roughly the same price, so I would recommend continuing your search and keeping Chipotle as your very last ditch effort.

I LOVE Chipotle. I was also eating here almost every day after the food poisoning scare because OMG FREE BURRITO COUPONS in the mail and no lines!

I used Chipotle for a backyard party- and they do provide chafing dishes, the racks, the steno to keep warm, plus matches! plates, silverware (paper and plastic), plus all of the food. It was the fastest I've ever seen food go at a party, it was a hit. If you're worried about keeping the cheese and sour cream cold, then yes, you hit a self catering issue, but keeping warm isn't an issue. Could you hire a college student or two from the hospitality school to help set up as serve?

I want to start by reiterating something several others have said: most of the people here are paying for their own weddings completely. So using that as a reason to cut corners doesn't really work here.

That said, no, I wouldn't use Chipotle. It's literally no better than self catering honestly. You still have to go get everything prior to the wedding, and try to keep foods at the proper temperatures until the reception starts. Which means SOMEONE has to watch the food all day long. This is probably one of the biggest issues with self catering. Even worse, with chipotle having the bad press about E. Coli, do you want to risk leaving their food out for possibly hours to grow and multiply the very bacteria that makes people so incredibly sick until it's time to eat? Probably not.

A full service caterer, ANY full service caterer, is a much better bet. BBQ, a mom and pop Mexican restaurant, etc are great places to inquire with.

Be ready for stupid ass comments. Chipotle isn't classy or 5 star enough so people are going to make comments about it.

Mf, actually people made some very valid points on how to keep the food at proper temperatures during the reception.

Your wedding is not Tuesday.

And Mf, what are YOU serving?

^^obviously read no comments. And thanks, @Catie, for reviving a dead thread.

Can we please stop referring to Chipolte as Mexican food?! They are mutually exclusive entities.

^^^Just wanted to co-sign this.

What is your venue like? You could do food trucks...

You could also find a caterer who will probably do Mexican food at about the same rate as Chipotle and offer more options. Not everyone likes tacos and quesadillas (Tacos rule). It's just very limiting to only offer those things as a meal.

I wouldn't feel comfortable using any food service/catering company for my wedding that has a history of bad business practices and especially food borne illnesses.