Chipotle plans to ditch gas grills at 100 new locations | Hacker News Reader

Chipotle plans to ditch gas grills at 100 new locations

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21 pointshochmartinez90 comments

Cooking on gas stoves is one of the few genuine, sensory pleasures many food-oriented people (myself included) have in life and it's really sad that there seems to be a concerted political effort to take it away.

I've used an induction stove for several months, had plenty of time to get used to it and it isn't pleasant to cook on.

Please leave us alone and let us enjoy things.

In a previous apartment that had an electric range, I was prepared to be super bummed out when cooking, and I cook a lot.

I was shocked to absolutely fall in love with it. I'm back to gas now in a new apartment and it's sad.

Modern electric simply gets so much hotter so much faster. It's like the ultimate luxury. It's true I had to get used to sliding the pan off the heat instead of turning down the gas, but that's easy.

For me, there's zero sensory loss. It's not like you really ever even see the flame anyways since it's covered by the pan. Everything sensory about cooking is the sizzle in the pan, not what's heating it underneath.

And there's nothing sad about a concerted political effort -- that's what efforts are for, to improve public health by reducing emissions and reducing childhood asthma.

(Outdoor charcoal grills are another matter, I'll admit though -- for the heat and the char and the smoke flavor, there's no electric equivalent.)

I think there's a large class of people unduly turned off non-gas by experience with non-induction (conduction) electric hobs. They are/were pretty crap - slightly better than gas in limited ways; with other drawbacks, including more expensive.

Induction brings the price down to a point where you need to look at temporal regional prices, isn't hot when it's turned off, and delivers significant power highly efficiently, with a very easy to clean surface. I don't see why the ultimate kitchen needs any kind of hob but induction and proper (massive upward flame for when the flame itself is actually in use) wok burners.

Even glass-covered resistance electric stovetops are better than they used to be. I'm perfectly satisfied with mine. The handful of recipes where it's useful to have an open flame can often be accomplished with a hand torch or the broiler. My next stove will be induction, but in the meantime I'm not missing gas.

What are your open flame uses that can be achieved with a grill or handheld? I would have said they are extremely few, but not really substitutable (except that in pan on any hob type is already a substitute) - wok (engulfed in flame such that it's not just bottom heated), phulka/similar breads (charred and blown up more effectively on naked flame) and I can't think what else?

One common method of roasting peppers is to do it over an open flame, but you can do it with a broiler. You can also use a torch to improve the flavor of stir fries if you don't have a high-BTU wok burner:

https://www.seriouseats.com/hei-now-youre-a-wok-star-a-fiery...

I won't rent an apartment with a gas stove these days. Not only is it extremely slow to heat liquids, it's also an incredible pain in the ass to clean and you have to be extra careful to ventilate the area to reduce the amount of air pollution being created.

> Not only is it extremely slow to heat liquids

This isn't a function of fuel, it's a function of output, which varies model-by-model. I have an electric stove/hob in my flat in London, and it takes -- no joke -- well over 30 minutes to boil two litres of water.

Conversely, my last house in the US before moving to the UK had a 25,000 BTU gas burner which was so hot that you could barely use it. It boiled water extremely quickly, and it was great for seasoning cast iron because of how quickly it would reach temperature and polymerise the oil. The whole setup was also easy to clean, as pretty much the entire thing came apart. Sure, not quite as easy as a glass top, but it also wouldn't get scratched all to hell by sliding my cast iron around.

Yep! So many advantages of induction.

I like induction stoves, and I am a foodie who really likes to cook, but where a few years ago, I thought that induction would surely take over for every indoor application everywhere, but I've come to accept that as wrong after discovering the joys of cooking on a wok.

For those who haven't, the beauty of a wok is that flames can creep up the sides of the wok -- the whole surface is "hot" but gets hotter as you descend into the bowl, so that you can sear steaks and vegetables really quickly, then add other ingredients. The sides need to be hot -- it doesn't work on a flat cooktop -- so that you can add sauces to the outside of the wok and they'll do this magic caramelization trick as they descend the bowl of the wok.

As your slower-cooking ingredients are finished cooking, you sort of push them up the sides of the wok and then add in your faster ingredients so that everything comes together in a single pot, beautifully cooked, all at the same time.

I've tried and tried to replicate the experience on induction, but I can't, and I can't imagine anything that does. I have a komodo grill and bought an insert that allows me to use a wok on it, but while it's very good, it still isn't quite the same (can't "turn down" a bed of coals as quickly or precisely, for instance,) isn't really an option for most apartment dwellers, and tho I do not know, I don't suspect that firing up a bunch of carbonized coals is somehow better for the environment than gas (but it might be?)

For woks alone, I suspect there'll always be a justification for open flames. Would love to hear more impressions from those who grew up with or have cultural ties to wok cooking.

I agree with you, but it's not like you can cook in a wok on a normal residental gas stove anyways.

The burners aren't nearly strong enough, nor are people's ventilation systems usually strong enough.

I think of authentic stir fry enthusiasts like I think of Neapolitan pizza enthusiasts -- they can invest in the special equipment. But they don't really have anything to do with average kitchens.

> Neapolitan pizza enthusiasts

Weirdly, the best "pizza appliance" I've found for this is the kamado, which I can get up to about 800 degrees without meaningfully damaging the gaskets (tho I expect it reduces their useful lifespans) - it shouldn't work, because the heat source is in the wrong spot, but it definitely does if you let it rip beforehand and then add the convector plate afterward

Easiest way to do that wok style cooking is outside. Otherwise it's many thousands of dollars for the range and the hood.

My solution was to buy a wok burner. Available online or at Asian restaurant supply stores, they come in propane and natural gas models. My particular one is rated at 130k BTUs. I never take it that high though.

There also exist induction wok burners. They are fitted to round bottom woks. I have no experience with them and assume they are expensive.

Curious how those would work. 100-150k BTUs would be 30k-41k watts, which is a) dramatically more than any of the ones I've seen out there, and b) would presumably deform a carbon steel wok pretty badly? Not sure.

The math definitely isn't as linear as I'd like to be, so I'm super curious to hear how well it works in the real world. Best of luck!

I'm both a foodie, an avid home cook, and an induction fan. I don't miss gas at all for typical western cooking.

I'm also a Kenji Lopez-Alt disciple, and have been getting into wok cooking. I picked up a used 3500 watt gastro induction wok cooker on the cheap, and sadly, yeah, you're right.

I'm considering selling it, and getting a flat-bottomed wok for indoors (I've got a high-end, peak 3700 watt induction stove), and getting a splitter for my outdoor gas tank (for my grill) that also will feed an outdoor wok burner.

I wouldn't want a high-powered gas wok burner inside anyway. I already have to temporarily remove the smoke alarm in my open kitchen / living room just to use the induction burner.

But that's pretty fringe. For standard western style pans, I love induction, and that's the much more common case. It's way less hot in the kitchen, and both the raw power and fast control on my carbon steel pans is very convincing. I love pulling a trick I do where I boil about 1 cm of water in a pan in 20 seconds, pull it off the burner, and immediately put my full palm on the burner, which is barely warm. I've noticed induction is really picking up in haute cuisine in the Michelin starred or near to it kitchens that I visit on a semi-regular basis.

And home and restaurants are really the case that's interesting in terms of reducing emissions.

Maybe you'll have more luck with the flat-bottomed wok than I did, but I wouldn't have your hopes set terribly high

I suspect someone will create an electric wok that you can store in the cupboard and pull out when you want it. No need for gas.

I have a gas stove and love it, I love to bbq on wood coals, etc..

I still understand how air quality works.

Opening a window when you are combusting indoors is not neuroscience.

The fact that this is "political" is just nuts.

Opening a window isn't enough, for me. I need a powerful fan, too.

Opening a window isn't exactly practical or available in many situations.

And largely unnecessary as most building codes now mandate exhaust and fresh air requirements where gas cookers are fitted.

That's for new buildings.

Most people don't live in new buildings.

Fair enough. Do you think it's easier to add some vent fans or retrofit a building gas->electric in every flat? It's not as easy as it's made out to be. Buildings were designed with sufficient electric service given the utilities available at the time. Buildings with gas have undersized electrics. In other words the service (transformer etc.) is likely inadequate. A massive retrofit from gas to electric cookers would be insanely expensive.

Actually, I think gas->electric is the easier one quite frequently.

Simply because adding vent fans can be a physical impossibility because there's nowhere to vent to. There's more living space on the other side of the wall (in your building or an adjacent building) so you can't vent directly outdoors, and there's no duct so you can't vent anywhere else either.

I'm not an electrician so I can't speak to the cost of upgrading -- but it sounds like that might be required for widespread adoption of EV charging anyways. So if transformers are being upgraded nationwide anyways, then supporting electric stoves might come for free.

It's also not necessary. The particulate studies that measured gas stoves as being super dangerous were measured in the most impractical scenarios where the room was sealed off with plastic, and not at all reflective of basically anyone's real home.

Just buy a CO2 sensor and you'll see quickly what the issue with gas stoves is. I have one in front of my gas stove and it takes a lot longer even with ventilation / open windows that you'd think to get back to normal indoor levels.

Seriously. I always thought it was exaggeration until I bought a sensor as well. I was horrified.

A little CO2 isn't harmful at all. Are you thinking of CO?

CO2 is just an easy to measure thing but if CO2 is leaking in to the room, all the other pollutants are too. If your extraction setup was actually working properly you wouldn't notice any change in CO2 in the room.

CO2 is obviously a proxy here indeed, although it is harmful by itself.

This is not “a little CO2”. Buy or rent a sensor, go cooking without the hood set to the proper setting / a window cracked open for long enough, and you’ll be horrified.

I think it's the concern about CO2 emissions that are political.

Yeah, which is nuts.

What's next? Math is political?

I don't know – I'm not the one who doesn't think we should reduce CO2 emissions.

Sorry for the offtopicness but could you please email me at hn@ycombinator.com? I want to send you a repost invite.

One thing that bums me about the whole air quality conversation is that as much as we talk about the gas stovetops, no one seems to bother about the other things that contribute to poor indoor quality:

1. Gas ovens 2. What you’re cooking. Frying chicken on an induction stovetop is probably going to do more damage to the air quality than gas stoves with industrial exhausts (I have the latter) 3. House layout. This one possibly bothers me the most. There are so many houses with poorly designed ventilation. Replacing stovetops is not going to significantly improve air quality. My open kitchen with really good exhausts are going to have much better air quality with a gas stove than most houses with an electric one. 4. Other household items. Hundreds of other products like cleaning agents still will continue to pollute indoor air with carcinogens but no one will ban them.

1 - Gas ovens go together with gas stoves, it goes without saying. I don't think anybody's using an electric range with a gas oven. Electric ranges go with electric ovens

2 - Frying chicken results in some particulate matter (PM10) but that doesn't seem to be a global warming concern or an asthma concern, and it settles out of the air quickly. But if you have an "industrial exhaust" as you say, all the oil gets sucked out anyways so it doesn't even matter

3 - Poorly designed ventilation is precisely where switching to electric has the biggest benefit, not the smallest, since cooking is the #1 source of indoor particulate matter and CO2

4 - This is why lots of people clean with gentler cleaning products. But they don't seem to contribute to global warming or asthma in the same way from what we know, and most people aren't using crazy harsh cleaning chemicals multiple times daily the way they do the stove, so it seems like a much smaller issue

The picture in the article is of a flat top grill, which I imagine is easier for a restaurant to keep clean. Would gas vs electric matter much to you on a flat top where you aren't moving a pan around?

From your name I'm assuming you're an aussie? Do you _really_ think bbqs are going away? Do you really think that there is a "concerted political effort", here in Australia, to remove gas stoves?

> it's really sad that there seems to be a concerted political effort to take it away.

No such effort exists. The effort is to educate the public about the health risks of indoor combustion cooking and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with natural gas appliances.

If you are referring to the ban on natural gas in new housing in some areas, the vast majority of existing housing in those areas still has natural gas.

Can you explain how it is a genuine sensory pleasure – do you mean the actual act of cooking or the taste of the food afterwards?

Gas cooking is very responsive. You can get a similar experience from an induction stove, but the pans have to be much thicker/heavier to get a similar response. Doing a decent stir fry is all but impossible on either induction or standard electric.

> Doing a decent stir fry is all but impossible on either induction or standard electric.

Not really. Jon Kung makes the positive case for an induction wok better than I can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNzRrHA9VY. The usage of the wok precedes the gas burner by.. maybe 1500 years? Cooking on an electric range is just something to get used to.

It really matters to me to see the flame when cooking

Does this help you when cooking? I'm an OK but not great cook (or so I like to think) and I tend to just think of a hob as a heat source. I guess the main downside of induction is that you can't pick up the pan?

Light a candle then

“All I want to do is smoke inside this restaurant - leave me alone to smoke in peace”

It objectively doesn't matter unless you're using the flame - phulkas blown up directly in the flame or a wok fully engulfed (not merely bottom-heated, however big the ring).

> Cooking on gas stoves is one of the few genuine, sensory pleasures many food-oriented people (myself included) have in life

I’m not asking this to be snarky but:

1) In your entire life?

2) In the entire life of many people?

Name some others then? Not GP but it seems obvious to me that anything about fire or cooking is ranking highly on 'sensory pleasures'. Primeval stuff we can be quite detached from.

I prepare a meal and eat it. Let's assume I'm eating it alone, to avoid bringing in the pleasures of socialization. Sensory pleasures include: the smell + appearance of the ingredients; cutting vegetables with a well-sharpened knife; the sound of food cooking; the smell of food cooking; the visual enjoyment of the completed food; the visual enjoyment of a well-plated meal; the taste, textures, and smells of the meal; the contrast between the meal and any beverages; the feeling of satisfaction from having eaten a good meal. I would say that most of these are at least as pleasurable as interacting with the flame of a gas stove, and often far more pleasurable.

I mean I don’t think I need to be crass here but nothing beats the feeling of typing on a mechanical keyboard.

Yeah, screw the climate. Winter sucks anyway, right?

It was only a few months ago that eliminating gas stoves was a whacky right wing conspiracy theory. Now it's getting rolled out and the narrative shifts to "yes it's true and it's a good thing."

The wacky right-wing conspiracy theory is that "they" were going to come and take gas stoves out of people's homes. This is not happening.

There's a lot you can do with an electric flat top, but there are flavor profiles that are literally impossible without direct flame. That smokey char flavor that you get on roasted chicken and beef and vegetables when the flames lick them for example.

Part of the thing they are burying here is that because Chipotle has already switched to precooking so many of their food items off site that they are probably going to switch to adding the flavor artificially.

This is true but misleading. All of this stuff is driven by Chipotle having to deal with food safety issues at scale. They've had so many scandals that boil down to local managers skip food safety and they gave up and just made it impossible.

Chipotle pre-cuts and washes basically all the vegetables for speed and so you can't not wash them. They also sous vide the steak for the same reasons. They still cook the chicken in-house because par-cooking the chicken actually makes it more susceptible to salmonella.

The only one that isn't defendable is they stopped making the red and green salsa in house because they decided they were going to be a trade secret.

I would like to point out that you don't get those flavor profiles on a gas stove either unless you never cook with a pan. I've used a cast iron skillet on both gas and electric and I get the exact same flavor profile with both. The only difference I've noticed between the two is how concentrated the temperature gradient is. Gas puts a hot spot wherever the flame is whereas electric is pretty even, so you don't hit as high of a temperature on an electric stove even though you're dumping similar amounts of heat into the vicinity of the burner. The best electric stove I've ever cooked on was actually a cheap Ikea induction hot plate. That thing dumped so much energy into my cast iron it would heat up in seconds. Even on the lowest setting I could definitely sear a steak in it. It's way better than gas.

I think induction is great for like 90% of use cases. But there are a few techniques that involve sustaining heat while moving the pan that it’s not very good at. One classic use case is using a wok.

That's true, but the hardcore wok users I've seen just use big gas jets anyway so I'm not sure a regular gas stove gets hot enough for proper technique.

Yeah, the unique flavor/aroma of flame grilled food comes from fats rendering and dripping down onto the hot burning coals, vaporizing, then adhering to the meat. Gas grills try to emulate this with a grate that allows the same vaporizing, but it doesn't work as well.

For the context of a restaurant they absolutely use indoor gas grills.

Cast iron is a good use case for an induction. But if you are trying to cook something delicate where you need really precise on/off temperature control (like a hollandaise sauce) it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to get it right with an induction top (for a pan to work on induction it needs to retain a lot of heat).

A wok stir fry is another example - a thin metal pan that you need to work the crap out of is a really bad time on electric.

Wok hei requires higher heat than they're probably using. And it's carcinogenic, anyway.

Everything is carcinogenic, especially all the delicious things.

Not all. I think blueberries are delicious, for example.

most chipotles cook on a flat top anyway, so there is no direct flame

It's been a bit since I have been to a Chipotle, but at the time they used an indoor grill to char their chicken.

Where is the net new electrical generation capacity to power these 100 new locations coming from not solar panels. Most likely gas turbine generation or coal

They mention 3 locations in the press release, so here are the electric generation types by state https://www.eia.gov/beta/states/overview

Gloucester, Virginia - 53% gas, 36% nuclear, 6.5% renewable, 4.5% coal

Jacksonville, Florida - 70% gas, 15% nuclear, 8.8% coal, 5.2% renewable, 0.9% petrol

Castle Rock, Colorado - 41% coal, 30% gas, 29% renewable

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53779

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51698

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/03/24/ferc-says-1700-gw-of-...

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/02/06/2023-will-see-the-mos...

Even if provided electricity by gas turbine, it’s more efficient to burn that gas in the turbine and deliver electrons to the stove. Coal is dead by the end of the decade (only one coal fired generator, “Dry Fork”, in Wyoming is cheaper than new renewables in the US).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/30/us-coal-more...

https://www.gem.wiki/Dry_Fork_Station

Electric generated elsewhere with gas not necessarily more efficient than burning gas in a situation in which the house the stove is in needs to be heated. Same goes for gas water heaters and tank water heaters in general.

From there it's a simple calculation of heating need vs efficiency difference to determine which is more efficient in a particular use case.

Source for the “most likely” claim?

100 locations, so it appears it’s for new locations.

The bigger question is “Why?” and “How?”.

Gas is more cost efficient than electric. So the cost burden has to drop on somebody…likely the consumer.

Beyond that, most geographic locations aren’t producing “green” electricity to actually cut down on emissions as Chipotle is claiming.

To actually have them cut down on emissions, you essentially have to increase emissions - pulling out raw material, transportation, manufacturing, more transportation..etc.

It looks good in marketing, but until we are able to limit emissions in manufacturing and creating electricity, it’s all puff.

Induction stoves. More efficient than gas, more control over heat, and gas distribution pipes leak (we’re spending almost $1B to fix the existing leaky ones). Gas stoves also are unhealthy due to reduction in indoor air quality, a health hazard to both Chipotle line workers and their customers. The electrical grid gets greener every year, gas stoves burn gas their entire life. Just like EVs vs ICE vehicles, and heat pumps vs furnaces.

https://www.energystar.gov/partner_resources/brand_owner_res...

https://reviewed.usatoday.com/ovens/features/induction-101-b...

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/new-research-re...

https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/21/23593644/gas-stove-poll...

It’s also on brand for Chipotle (healthy food, treat the planet well, all that jazz). If you’re building new, it makes sense to electrify everything. I’m not sure if they’re taking advantage of tax incentives in the inflation reduction act (or their NNN CRE landlords are and passing it through as a tenant allowance), but it would make sense if they did.

> more efficient than gas

if there's anywhere waste should be permissible, it's how people prepare their food. for defenses of that i'd refer to arguments in favor of waste in the medical system that address quality of care and outcomes

> more control over heat

with gas, i choose how far the pan is from the heat source, and i know how much energy is coming out of the burner no matter what stove i'm using because i can look at the flames

> gas distribution pipes leak

when the gas goes out, which mine never has, i can cook with the toaster oven and heat my home with space heaters. when the power goes out, as it does a few times a year, i can cook with the stove and heat my home with the furnace

> i can look at the flames

Samsung and other nice induction units have a visual indicator that while a bit silly from some perspectives, replaces looking at the flames.

https://www.google.com/search?q=samsung+induction+flame+indi...

this is really cool! i'd still prefer gas for _control_ over the heat, but if this is mapped well enough i could see it working as a temp readout. though i have little faith this would be mapped well

Still too indirect. Why not having 3 7-segments showing degrees Celsius or even fucking Fahrenheit in steps of 10°?

No guessing. No experience required. Just measured. Done.

Flames don't show you temperature. You have to learn what the flame level means. You likely learned this so long ago you've forgotten how much work that takes.

Yes. That's what I said. Therefore 3 7-segment LEDs showing the temperature :-)

These old-fashioned things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-segment_display , you know?

One could possibly overengineer it by showing the chosen temperature in red, and the actual temperature in blue, or something.

From personal experience this is unnecessary, as evidenced by water boiling at 100°C, starting to have a few small bubbles/sparkles at 90°C, and none of that at 80°C.

Sorry for misunderstanding you.

Very few people cook with temperature as part of the process (stove top, anyway).

No need to be ;-) These old-fashioned things were 'new' for me, too. About a decade ago, when I had my first induction cooking experience.

But nerd that I am, one of the first things I tried was that bubble check until boiling, and how exact the display is. Since that time I'm considering any other method obsolete. Power in Watts? Useless. Some arbitrarily chosen steps? Useless. Temperature, sight and smell it is!

Actually, I'd argue there's another option, which is the I use 75% of the time with a gas stove and 100% time of with any form of electric stove (except the Samsung-style induction units I mentioned).

Step 1: believe that the controls are consistent and reasonably accurate Step 2: learn what control setting corresponds to what level of heat

The biggest problem with this method is that it can take a while (for me, perhaps on the order of a year or two). At this point, with my current gas range, I don't need to look at the flame - I know that half-way between "medium" and "medium-low" is just what I need for the current cooking task.

This is not technically accurate.

a) Health: Most of the studies are VERY preliminary. Only a minor correlation has been found between gas and childhood asthma. And the studies mostly confined themselves to home environments. Commercial kitchens already have much higher standards for ventilation quality.

b) Environmental: I think a good case could be made that eventually gas will go away as we transition. But currently it's still being burned off at the wellhead in the US as a waste product. It also only puts out a tiny carbon footprint compared to coal or oil - which would make it a slight improvement over using the average city power grid right now.

You don’t need a study to tell you inhaling methane, NO, and formaldehyde can be bad for your health.

Your argument about the environment is a strawman.

The discussion is about gas vs. electric stoves, not gas vs. coal.

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