Chipotle's first Denver burrito shop (1993)
Steve Ells opened the first Chipotle near the University of Denver campus, offering burritos and tacos with an assembly-line format. The model grew into a national chain and defined fast-casual dining.
Chipotle's assembly line caught on and expanded across Denver before going national.
It created the fast-casual category that concepts like Señor Tanuki now imitate.
Arai explicitly models Señor Tanuki as an 'Asian Chipotle' — the same assembly-line format applied to Japanese-Mexican food rather than burritos.
