Ells is an unusual executive. He’s a classically...

2:01 pm - Thu, Oct 25, 2012: 8 notes

Ells is an unusual executive. He’s a classically trained chef who runs a chain of more than 1,300 restaurants. He’s a man obsessed with innovation who has not changed his restaurants’ menu in 19 years. He’s the co-CEO of a publicly traded company who tells his employees things like this: “If it’s the right thing to do, let’s do it. Don’t worry about the costs. We’ll figure that out later.”

Somehow, a vivid and nuanced profile of Chipotle CEO Steve Ells, honoring him as “Most Inspiring CEO in America,” is hiding at the end of a slideshow on Esquire.com. We’re not complaining.

After all, Chipotle is successful because of its deliberate avoidance of factory-farmed meats, its emphasis on making service a human encounter, and its preference for freshness over efficiency. You may never have explicitly noticed these things, but they make a difference. And as people who believe in quality rather than convenience, we like them too.

(Also, their Asian experiment in DC, ShopHouse, is awesome.)