Chipotle Admits to Rounding Up Price Totals
It seems that the popular, somewhat-Mexican food restaurant Chipotle got caught cheating in math.
After a curious customer actually did some math of his own, he discovered a trend in his Chipotle receipts that rounded up his grand total.
Chipotle didn’t bother fighting it and admitted that rounding up was a practice they used across the country.
A spokesperson for Chipotle said that they rounded to the nearest nickel and in some cases even rounded to the nearest quarter so that the cashier did not have to deal with a ton of coins and kept the lines moving quickly.
Chipotle said that they usually did this in “high volume” markets and either rounded up or down.
So, Jayson Greenberg, the curious customer/reporter who wondered why he’d never get pennies back from his Chipotle is the one who stirred up this whole thing in the first place.
He added up the orders on three of his receipts and on the first receipt the total should have been $35.24, but it was rounded up to be $35.25. On his second receipt, the total should have been $9.24, but was rounded up to total $9.25. Finally, the third receipt should have totaled $18.99, but again it was rounded to $19.
So, the idea of keeping the lines moving made sense to Greenberg, except that like most places in 2012, the Chipotle Greenberg visits has a machine that spits out the change for the customer and the cashier never touches it.
Chipotle said they did not profit at all from the rounding, and those concerned will be happy to know that as of August 1, Chipotle started rounding down its totals and eliminated the upward rounding completely.
Even if it is just pennies, it never hurts to double-check your receipts.
