Chipotle to close all ShopHouse restaurant locations
ShopHouse, a Southeast Asian fast food chain, will close Friday after four years in Westwood. (Erin Gong/Daily Bruin)
By Hedy Wang
March 14, 2017 2:32 p.m.
All ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen locations, including one on Broxton Avenue, will close Friday.
Chipotle, a Mexican fast-food chain that owns the ShopHouse franchise, said in a statement that the restaurant did not generate enough revenue to justify further investment.
ShopHouse’s Westwood location opened on Broxton Avenue in 2013, two years after Chipotle launched the chain. The new fast-food chain serves Asian-inspired cuisine in a customizable manner similar to Chipotle.
The company will offer ShopHouse employees work at Chipotle and pay them for a week after the chain closes, the statement said.
Silas Lam, a UCLA alumnus, said he eats at ShopHouse in Westwood every week and likes the food, but is not surprised it is closing.
“ShopHouse is slightly more expensive than Chipotle but serves portions that aren’t as filling,” Lam said. “Business usually seems pretty slow, and Chipotle always seems to have more customers.”
Tru Valentino, another regular customer, said he thinks Chipotle should have tried to promote ShopHouse more instead of closing it.
“It’s a travesty,” Valentino said. “The prices here are good, there’s a lot of variety and it’s silly that their sales aren’t great. They’re not earning enough because Chipotle doesn’t promote it enough.”
Staff at the Westwood location declined to comment, citing company policy.
