SAN ANGELO, Texas — Crowds waited for hours Tuesday morning to be the first customers to order from the San Angelo Chipotle Mexican Grill.
“I’m excited, like so stoked… I was like I was gonna plan on camping out last night just to be here, one of the first people,” Kaymi Copeland said.
The grand opening was a greatly anticipated event.
“I literally drove by 2 a.m., 5 a.m., 7 a.m. and then 9 a.m. and then now I'm here,” Youalli Hernandez said.
Some people cleared their schedules just to be present.
“Most of us are missing our classes right now,” Copeland said.
Classes may have been smaller than usual Tuesday morning.
“I got an excused absence from class today because this is such a big important event,” Trevor Bills said.
It’s an event some residents couldn't miss. Jon McCullough was the first customer in line at the restaurant and for him, it had a special meaning.
“I used to work at Chipotle, I was a manager, I learned Spanish at Chipotle. I love Chipotle everywhere I go. I eat at Chipotle, every town when we go out of town,” McCullough said.
When the doors finally opened, the line seemed to get even longer.
“You can't expect this, I mean this…this is nice,” Chipotle General Manager, Logan Mettlen, said.
With the grand opening came a sheep unveiling. The artist for ‘Sheep-poat-lay’, Gabriel Luckey, used his creativity to incorporate something that symbolized the restaurant and his craft.
“The doodles came from the Chipotle cups, so that's what inspired me to do the doodles, and then the colors and shapes are just something that I went with that flows with the sheep,” Luckey said.
Concho Valley residents can expect to get their Chipotle fix with less of a wait time as the second Chipotle location will open soon.
“It's coming very soon, it should be opened by the end of the year. It’s going to be over there on Sherwood by Chick-fil-A,” Mettlen said.
Chipotle Director of Operations, Kelly Goforth, said during the sheep unveiling, the second Chipotle location is expected to open in December.