The Reason Chipotle Employees Have To Wear Special Gloves

Like other restaurants, Chipotle has a number of rules in place to keep employees and customers safe. Employees must wear Chipotle-branded shirts and hats, dark-colored pants, and non-slip shoes (via Zippia). Although official guidelines say employees are limited to stud earrings to prevent piercings from falling into the food, Reddit users say additional piercings may be allowed, depending on general managers' discretion. For similar reasons, artificial nails are forbidden — no one wants to find a nail in their burrito.

But as much as we don't want to find a tongue stud, a fake nail, or a finger in our Chipotle meal, it's safe to say employees definitely don't want that to happen. Especially not the finger. Ouch. Fortunately for customers and employees, there are additional guidelines for working at Chipotle that specifically address prep work like slicing and dicing produce. Yup, you guessed it, Chipotle employees have to wear special gloves when they're cutting up onions.

We're all familiar with the concept of wearing disposable gloves while preparing food, particularly in the restaurant setting. However, restaurants whose menus require extra chopping — such as Chipotle — take the glove thing a bit further.

According to Mental Floss, when Chipotle employees are prepping produce, they must wear chainmail gloves to protect their fingers. The chainmail glove goes on top of a disposable glove, per Business Insider, and is then covered with a second disposal glove, for a total of three layers.

In fact, the chain is so strict with this rule, workers who injure themselves while not wearing chainmail gloves can be fired, and the franchise can be fined up to $5,000 (via Reddit). New hires watch training videos about kitchen knife skills, of course, but the videos also stress the importance of wearing gloves while using knives. While some might view this as a bit excessive, it's far better to be safe than sorry.