What’s Behind TikTok’s Beef With Chipotle?

When Chipotle Mexican Grill started rolling out across the United States over two decades ago, food writers were astonished at the restaurant’s portion sizes.

“Behemoth California creations,” The New York Times wrote in 2003 of the chain’s signature offering, the burrito. So big that “it takes a little practice to handle one,” went a 2002 article in The Washington Post, which compared the size of a Chipotle burrito to a human head.

But times have changed, and so have the critics — they’re all on social media.

Now, a crop of young customers insists they’re not getting enough food in their orders, and they’re whipping out their phones to prove it.

Over the past month, TikTok users have devised a variety of viral tactics to protest what they say are skimpy portions from a chain known for dispensing guac-covered mountains of carbs and protein — including walking out of the restaurant without paying if they feel they’ve been shortchanged, and filming workers under the theory that surveillance leads to more rice, beans and steak.

Their claims are anecdotal, and occasionally conspiratorial. (In Reddit threads and deep in TikTok comments, anonymous posters frequently claim, without proof, to have inside connections at the chain.)

But they’re widespread enough that Chipotle has felt compelled to respond.

“There have been no changes in our portion sizes, and we have reinforced proper portioning with our employees,” Laurie Schalow, the company’s chief of corporate affairs and food safety, said in a statement.