A California Chipotle erupted into chaos May 31 as a trio of customers started throwing food at employees.
Video of the incident taken by bystanders shows three women attacking the store's employees. One woman climbs on top of the tables and jumps to the cash register counter, where she starts throwing objects at staff. Two other women climbed onto the employee side of the service counter and also began throwing food at the shocked staff.
Bemused customers can be seen scattered around the store as they watch the chaos.
Details of what led to the outburst are unknown, and it is unclear whether police became involved in the altercation. The Vallejo Police Department confirmed to KTVU-TV that they were made aware of the viral video and are investigating.
The identities and ages of the three women in the video are also unknown.
The incident comes roughly a month after Chipotle raised prices for customers and wages for its workers across the country.
"We did take a modest price increase of 6% to 7%. We've been watching the traffic since we took the price increase. We're not seeing anything yet, we're not seeing any change in behavior yet," CFO Jack Hartung said in May. "It's very early, so we'll keep a close eye on it."
Hartung added that Chipotle regulars are still entering the restaurant chain’s doors and that the company expects an elastic consumer that’s sustainable for their quick service model.
"We had a great first quarter. We had a 7% comp and more than 5% of that was driven by transaction growth, which I know is tough to come by in this kind of environment. The thing we're most proud of, when you look at our customers by income brackets, our low income consumers came at the same rate as our high income consumers," the CFO pointed out.
Echoing a similar message as celebrity chef Robert Irvine, Hartung explained how Chipotle is turning to technology and investing in robots that can reallocate simple work tasks — without eliminating human workers — during a costly time for business.
Chipotle’s line chef robot will focus on online orders only, according to the CFO, and is said to minimize ingredient mistakes while ensuring on-time delivery.
