Chipotle’s Non-Burrito Pizzeria Concept Expands Eastward

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For the last couple of years, Chipotle has been playing around with pizza at the few Pizzeria Locale eateries it has in Colorado. But now the eatery is looking to the east and seeing there are hungry mouths to feed in the Kansas City area, where another Locale is set to open this summer.

The Kansas City Star reports that a Pizzeria Locale restaurant will open up next door to an existing Chipotle in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, MO, and will employ between 15-20 people.

The Pizzeria Locale idea, which is a partnership between Chipotle and restaurant founders Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, brings Chipotle’s made-to-order practices to the pizza business, using ovens that can blast a custom-made pizza in a matter of a few minutes.

The selection of Kansas City is interesting as it was one of the first (but not the first, as the Star writes) non-Colorado destinations for Chipotle when that chain first began expanding more than 15 years ago.

Stuckey and Mackinnon-Patterson opened their first Pizzeria Locale, a full-service restaurant, in 2011 in Boulder. Then Chipotle became interested and backed the opening of two quick-service locations in 2013 and 2014, both in Denver.

Now it’s a wait-and-see game to find out if Kansas City residents will take to this new pizza or if they’ll stick with the pies they know.

[via Eater]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist