Freshii to Offer Discount During Temporary Chipotle Closure

Canadian fast-casual chain Freshii is hoping to cash in on Chipotle’s day off.

On February 8, the day that Chipotle will close all locations for a few hours, 200 participating Freshii locations will help burrito-starved customers through these dark hours by offering 50 percent off on all Mexican-inspired menu items.

It’s a move that could help the brand reach thousands of new consumers—but is it really just a smart marketing tactic to gain additional market share, or is Freshii kicking the competition while they’re down? According to Freshii founder and CEO Matthew Corrin, it’s simply a matter of relieving some anxiety around a pretty serious topic by feeding Chipotle’s hungry customers.

“Like millions of other people, we at Freshii are big fans of Chipotle,” Freshii founder and CEO Matthew Corrin said in a statement. “We figured the least we would do was look after their customers while Chipotle paused to recalibrate. If a few Chipotle customers fall in love with a Freshii menu item, we hope they’ll come back to both stores more often.”

Freshii offers about a half-dozen Mexican-style meals on its menu that will be discounted, such as the Baja Burrito, stuffed with quinoa, avocado, red and green onions, cilantro, salsa and pico de gallo, and the Ranchero Breakfast Burrito. And according to Corrin, these items are already among Freshii’s most popular.

The New York Times reported that this is not the first time Freshii has tried to ride a bigger competitor’s coattails. Last May, Corrin sent an open letter to Steve Easterbrook, then the new chief executive of McDonald’s, asking him, in all seriousness, to install a Freshii kiosk in a McDonald’s store. He predicted that store would experience a 30 percent rise in same-store sales over a year and contribute to $250,000 in profit.

Needless to say, that effort never panned out. But Carrin believes their latest ploy will help them make lemonade out of Chipotle’s lemons.

“I think it will end up costing us, but we wanted to do something that would be eye-catching and maybe introduce consumers to healthier version of burritos and bowls than what they find at Chipotle,” Corrin said in an interview with The New York Times.