Chipotle Closes Boston Location to Deal With Norovirus

Just when everyone thought that Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NASDAQ: CMG) had outrun its food problems, the company is facing another hurdle in terms of its food quality. Workers at one of the burrito chain’s Boston locations have fallen ill from a norovirus.

Four workers from the town of Billerica, just outside Boston, reportedly got sick and now this location is closed to disinfect the location and pinpoint the route of the norovirus. Early in February, Chipotle closed down all of its locations for one day to retrain its staff for these situations and implement new protocol for dealing with food-borne illnesses.

Even recently, Chipotle was battered and bruised. Its E. coli and food-borne illnesses reached a major level as far as how bad it hurt Chipotle’s store traffic and sales, and its shareholders have paid a huge price.

Still, this stock remains a top pick among millennials, and many investors, which might explain why the stock is not down even further in Wednesday’s session. The stock hit a low back in January, but since then the stock has bounced up about 25%.

So far in 2016, Chipotle has outperformed the broad markets, with the stock up 9%. However, in the past 52 weeks the stock has fallen over 20%.

Shares of Chipotle were trading down 5.2% at $497.65 early Wednesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $492.75 and a 52-week trading range of $399.14 to $758.61.