When I graduated from cooking school, I went to work at Stars, which was one of my favorite restaurants in the country at the time, and that's where I really learned to cook and to taste food in a discerning way.

Think about the systems at McDonald's. It's a very mechanized world, where you take out a highly processed patty.

I remember feeling a little guilty every time I opened a Chipotle. I felt guilty because I wasn't following my true passion. But that eventually went away. And I realized that this is my calling.

Steve Ells Quotes