Seamless, Moe’s troll Chipotle over its lunchtime closure today

As Chipotle rehabilitates its image following an E. coli outbreak that left 500 people sick in the U.S., the company is being battered once again for its decision to close stores nationwide this afternoon for a safety meeting.

Today’s meeting is meant to outline the chain’s new food safety guidelines to franchise owners and employees, happening between 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. local time. As a result, Chipotle’s 2,000 locations will effectively be closed the lunch hour rush. This is not a detail that escaped competitors.

First up is Moe’s Southwestern Grill. The chain, with more than 600 locations nationwide, bought ads online and off touting the fact that it’s open today.

Here’s Moe’s full-page ad in the USA Today:

Moe’s also bought sponsored ads on Instagram and Twitter:

“We are competitors,” Moe’s CEO Bruce Schroder told CNN Money about the ads. “And we didn’t want the category to go dark for a day, so why not give Moe’s a try?”

Seamless and GrubHub sent out similar emails to customers shading Chipotle’s closure too, even mimicking Chipotle’s logo: grubhub On the Border, another competitor, is also running a promotion that takes a dig at Chipotle:

But don’t count Chipotle. The beleaguered chain is giving out free burritos in a text message promotion aptly called Raincheck, seen here:

https://digiday.com/?p=160605

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