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Chipotle cheating customers one penny at a time

Kelly Bradley

A literal penny pincher

Chipotle has been caught rounding up customers’ bill

Chipotle, the popular Mexican food restaurant chain, has been caught rounding up the bills of customers to the nearest even amount. If a customer owed $8.99, Chipotle would round that up to a nice, even $9.00.

According to Chipotle, however, this is merely a matter of efficiency. Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold spoke out saying “The way it works is that prices auto-round to the nearest quarter and that’s indicated on the receipt. The idea is simply to limit the possible combinations of change on cash transactions to keep the lines moving quickly.”

Although the chain restaurant isn’t seeing a profit from this Mr. Krabs-like maneuver, customers are still firing off complaints.

Chipotle even uses cash registers that automatically count out the correct change for the cashiers. This makes the “time saving” explanation sound a little silly.

Chipotle recognized this issue and now only rounds down to the nearest nickel, saving customers four cents.

With the rounding down strategy now in place, what does that mean for the future of the penny? Chipotle certainly won’t be needing the coin any longer.

With the coin costing 2.4 cents to manufacture, some have proposed the end to its production. However, approximately 67 percent of adults want to keep the penny around.

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