MARKETING
The rise of AI and social media is allowing misinfor- mation to flourish, and forcing restaurants to be more vigilant in snuffing it out. FOR RESTAURANTS ‘FAKE NEWS’ IS BECOMING A REAL PROBLEM
O n Saturday, Feb. 7, a popular X account called Wall Street Apes posted that the CEO of Chipotle had been “caught on a recording” saying that the chain was going to raise pric- es because many of its customers come from higher-income households. The post was reshared 12,000 times, sparking an outcry on social media and draw- ing negative headlines from outlets like Fox News and the New York Post. There was just one problem: It wasn’t true. The post blatantly misconstrued Chipot- le CEO Scott Boatwright’s actual comments, which were captured not on a leaked record- ing, but on a public earnings call with financial analysts held earlier that week. Boatwright did say on the call that many of Chipotle’s core customers come from households earning $100,000 or more, and that the chain wanted to focus more on that group as it looks to drive traffic this year. However, he said nothing about raising prices, on those customers or anyone else. In fact, CFO Adam Rymer said on the same call that Chipotle plans to keep price hikes below inflation in 2026. Still, the idea that the chain was secretly planning to gouge loyal customers made for good social media fodder and juicy headlines. It spread quickly over the weekend, and
by Monday, the situation was firmly on the radar of Chipotle’s social listening team, a group of half a dozen staffers who monitor social media from 7 a.m. to midnight, tracking chatter about the burrito chain, be it positive or negative. “In this case, it was clearly blatantly wrong,” said Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs and food safety officer. “And we’re very sensitive to the pricing conversa- tion and value for consumers these days. So that’s why we felt very quickly on this one that we needed to respond.” That day, Boatwright set the record straight in a previously scheduled interview with Yahoo Finance. Schalow issued a sepa- rate statement to the press, and the chain’s social team worked to respond to inaccurate posts and comments that were gaining trac- tion on social media. Chipotle didn’t see a direct impact on its business from the episode, Schalow said, but it posed a threat to the brand’s reputation. “It was something we wanted to correct because it was not right,” she said. It was just the latest example of how res- taurants are increasingly finding themselves on the wrong end of the attention economy, where virality often trumps veracity and bo- gus stories can spread in the blink of an eye. For some restaurant PR teams, reining in false
JOE GUSZKOWSKI
JOSEPH.GUSZKOWSKI@INFORMA.COM
18
RESTAURANT BUSINESS APRIL 2026
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