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When I first started this blog I was posting maybe 5 times a day? It was constant content but mostly non-Kuwait related. Then overtime I realized people were more interested with the Kuwait content so my topics because Kuwait focused and I dropped down to around 2-3 posts a day. Then, it dropped down to 1-2 a day. 14,000+ posts later and now I’m barely managing 1 post a day.

A lot has changed obviously in the 20+ years since I started. Back then the only other source for content were physical newspapers and magazines. Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok didn’t exist and so my blog was the only source of interesting Kuwait related content that was fast/live. Magazines you had to wait till the end of the month to read about something and newspaper were just not interesting and still aren’t interesting.

But now with soooo many sources for content I’m still finding my way of how to still be relevant and interesting. I think 99% of the content out there is trash, and I still don’t get this yelling salesman style of tiktok videos that people seem to do.

It’s been over a year since I launched my Instagram account and I really don’t think there is anything like it in Kuwait, mostly because of the wide range of content I cover. I at least think it is all interesting. Well based on the engagement people are also finding it interesting. But I really haven’t changed my content style much, it’s always been random. Scrolling through my Instagram account now makes me more aware how my brain is all over the place.

But, content is also taking a lot longer to put together. I use the app Simplenote for my blog, basically anytime I have a topic idea I create a new note. Then as I collect information on that topic I fill in that note. As of right now I have 203 potential future topics to post about, with some of those topic ideas even broken down further. For example, I have a “Design Highlights” note but under that I have 9 future posts. And these are solid topics, not random restaurants I’m invited to try, which I have zero interest in going to.

Yet I can barely scrape together 1 post a day for some reason. I’m trying to understand why and I think that’s mostly because it’s taking me longer than before to collect the information for posts. I’m now turning 46, I was 25 when I started blogging. I have a lot less free time, I have more responsibilities now and I don’t think I can do slapstick posts, basically random posts without substance. I understand that because of my Instagram account where I’ve set a personal benchmark where every post needs to be a blockbuster hit, but I should be able to post random shit here. My Instagram posts take a lot longer to put together than my blog because I spend so much time on the photo, and so much time getting the headline interesting without having to clickbait, and then I need to manage my writing since I’m limited to just 2,100 characters on Instagram. But, I do a lot of random posts on twitter than I do here.

As I just wrote that last sentence, I think I answered my own question. It’s a lot easier to post on twitter than it is on my blog where I need to sit down in front of a computer and do it. I no longer get on my computer in the evenings, I don’t have a laptop open in front of me while watching TV. Maybe that’s what I need to change, either start getting on my laptop again in the evenings, or just get comfortable posting on the blog through my phone.

I tried posting from my phone maybe 10 years ago and it would mess up the look of the post. But the WordPress app has changed a lot since then and so has my blog theme so maybe it’s not an issue anymore. I’ll try to post from my phone again and if it works it should hopefully improve things moving forward.

This week I finished watching Under the Bridge which turned out to be pretty good. I also started watching The Veil which isn’t that great but I’m curious to see where it goes. I’m traveling in 10 days time so kinda watching b-rated shows for now and saving the rest for the plane. Currently have the following I’m saving for my trip:

Hacks (Latest season)
Clarksons Farm (Latest season)
Loot (Latest season)
Mr & Mrs Smith (Halfway through)
The Iron Claw (Movie)
Dream Scenario (Movie)
A Man in Full
Ripley
Unfrosted (Movie)
Obliterated
The New Look
The Sympathizer

Let me know in the comments what you’ve been watching or planning to watch this weekend.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Abigail (6.8)
Dead Racer (5.7)
IF (6.8)
Knox Goes Away (6.9)
Memory (6.6)
You Can’t Run Forever (N/A)

Other Movies Showing:
Bloodline Killer (7.5)
Civil War (7.6)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (6.5)
Inception (Classic/2010) (8.8)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (7.4)
Kung Fu Panda 4 (6.4)
The Fall Guy (7.3)
The Little Mermaid (4.6)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Last week a video popped up on my feed that I thought was fascinating. A guy called Hamad AlMuzaini (@hamad.muzaini) had spotted a little piece of architecture history at a scrap yard in Amghara, the Maison Bulle (Bubble House) by French modernist architect, Jean-Benjamin Maneval.

The Bubble House which was conceived in 1963 is considered to be one of the most successful designs for “futuristic plastic houses“. Only 300 of these prefab homes were ever built and so it’s pretty incredible that not only did one end up in Kuwait, but the fact that it survived and is in fairly decent condition is a miracle.

Hamad is an architect and designer who lived and worked in the US for roughly 13 years. Most of his work experience revolved around modular and prefabricated construction, which is why when he spotted the Bubble House roughly two years ago, he immediately recognized that it was a novel system and had immense value. But, Hamad only realized recently what he had spotted when an account he follows posted a similar Bubble House. So Hamad went back to Amghara and called the number of the scrapyard asking if it was for sale. From there he purchased the house and started planning its relocation.

Most of the images online consistently depicted the Bubble House set against nature, making a really beautiful composition of something quite futuristic. So he decided to move the Bubble House out of the scrap yard and onto his family’s farm.

Currently Hamad is focusing his efforts on restoring the structure without permanent and damaging procedures. He wants to restore it as close to the original as possible but without an interior layout, leaving it as an open floor plan. He hopes to one day host events with some community engagement surrounding the Maison Bulle, but for now his focus is to restore it.

How the Bubble House ended up in Kuwait in the first place is still a mystery, but at least it’s in good hands right now.

There are a lot of great Thai restaurants in Kuwait but my favorite by far has to be Phet Phet. I think they have the best Pad Thai and Panang Curry in Kuwait, but I also really love their Spicy Potato Noodles. They have been delivery only since they launched a few years ago, but today they’re opening their first dine-in location.

Phet Phet was started by two female friends who used to go to Thailand a lot. When covid hit, they missed Thailand and the food they used to have there, and since delivery wasn’t available at one point, they decided to make their own recipes and cook their own food. Eventually, they decided to open up a restaurant and called it Phet Phet.

Their new location is located in Salmiya, on the same street as %Arabica and Joe and the Juice. It’s a very cute space and so close to where I live which is great for me. They’re open from 3PM to 11PM daily except for Sundays when they close. Here is the location on Google Maps, and their instagram account is @phetphetkw

Since a lot of record stores pop up and close down often, I tend to update this list every few years.

All the small online stores that sold new records have closed down, including @vinyldestinationkw, and so if you want a new release, your best bet is ordering from Amazon.

But, if you’re looking for old used records, you actually have multiple options in Kuwait.

The Antique Basement
This basement in Salmiya has various stores selling vintage and antique items, three of them also have a small collection of old records. They’re not organized but instead are either just pilled up on top of one another, or randomly stacked in boxes. Finding stuff is a bit of an adventure, but on the bright side, they’re mostly English records. Here are the instagram accounts of those stores:

@tathkron
@fahad___bokhaled
@alnasser_antiques_kuwait

Nawader
This guy has the most insane collection of old music since he acquired all the remaining stock of the old record label “Bou Zaid Phone“, one of the most important Kuwaiti record labels. Nawader has a huge collection of new-old-stock records, cassettes and even 8-track tapes. Nearly all of the records he has are in Arabic, and he also has many very hard to come by ones. I got my 4-volume vinyl set of the “Kuwaiti Television Artistic Group” from him, and although he wouldn’t sell me his copy of the Iftah Ya Simsim record, he did hook me up with someone else who sold me theirs. He has a location thats by appointment only, but you can also purchase or request items through any one of his three instagram accounts:

@nawaderq8
@q8nawader
@istuwanat

Moqtanayaty
If you’re looking for a vintage record player, boombox, 8-track or even reel-to-reel players to buy, the best store in Kuwait is Moqtanayaty, or “My Belongings” when translated to English. I bought my vintage record player from there and they can even repair vintage music players, VCRs, or really old TVs. You can check them out on instagram @vintage_radio_

If you know of another place that sells records, let me know in the comments.

Similar to the ‘A-Frame‘ Farm which I posted about a couple of years ago, the ‘Countryside Farmhouse’ is another picturesque farm in Wafra that is also available to rent.

The 3,000m2 farmhouse features 4 master bedrooms, a cozy living room, both an indoor and outdoor kitchen, and various outdoor seating areas including a rooftop with a beautiful view. The farm which can host up to 10 guests also has a swimming pool, gardens all around, and a dedicated kid’s play area, so plenty of room for you and your friends.

What initially caught my attention was the beautiful Mediterranean look of the farmhouse which is what I think makes this place feel like a secret getaway. The price to rent the farm is 165 KD per night during the weekdays, and 485 KD if you want to book it for the whole weekend. Not too bad if you split the cost with friends. If you want to check out more photos or to book, head over to their instagram account @countrysidekw

The Northern Salmiya Building is located in the old Salmiya souk on Salem Mubarak Street. It’s over 50 years old, and since I grew up down the street from it, I’ve seen so many shops come and go there.

It’s the same complex that used to house Kids’r’us (Alghanim Automotive before that) and it’s the same building that had the old National/Panasonic store that used to have the NeoGeo in the window display. The corner shop was Boushahri where everyone used to go to get their passport photos taken. Mogahwi was also located there, the first Alshaya stores also all opened there including The Bodyshop, BHS, Mothercare and Next.

The building was also designed by SSH over 50 years ago, the same firm that’s behind JACC, ASCC and the waterfront project.

Recently, the corner of the building was demolished, and a tower was built in its place. It sucks that they demolished part of the building, but now that the tower is up it’s actually not that bad and I’m glad at least that they didn’t demolish the whole thing. What’s great is that they’ve also gone ahead and refurbished the rest of the building with a fresh coat of paint, new lights and even had some oversized signages for some of the stores removed.

The building is looking pretty good now, and I wish more old buildings got refurbished as well. And I don’t mean Dasman Complex style refurbishing where they’re just horribly covering the whole building facade with Alucobond.

If you haven’t been to old salmiya recently you should, it’s really popping. Google Maps

Update: Just found a photo in my archive of the Northern Salmiya Building under construction

YISWA is an interesting local auction app where it works the other way around, prices go down instead of going up. It’s a new way to shop where the longer you wait, the better the price gets. But, wait too long and someone else might snatch the item up.

The way YISWA works is items go on sale one at a time in the app. They first get listed with the retail price, and then quickly start dropping down in price. The price keeps dropping until people buy the item and it gets sold out. Because there is no way to tell how many pieces are left in stock or how many people are interested in it, you want to set a price that is both reasonable for you and ensures you don’t miss out on the item.

So for example, starting tomorrow (Tuesday), YISWA will be selling pairs of VIP tickets for the Bassem Yousef and Maz Jobrani comedy show that’s taking place later this month. The retail price for the tickets is 140KD which is how much they will go on sale for. But, once the auction starts, the price will start dropping until the tickets get purchased by someone. The longer you wait, the cheaper the price will get but the higher the chance of someone else buying it.

YISWA have also included some features in the app to make the shopping experience easier. For example, you can preview upcoming auctions and ask the app to notify you when they start. You can also set a buy it now price for the items, so for example, you could set your buy it now price for the 2 VIP tickets at 100KD. If the price drops to your set price, the app will automatically purchase the tickets for you.

If you want to check the app out and just browse, you can do that without needing to sign up. Just download the app and check it out. For the download link, head over to their website yiswaapp.com

This past weekend I picked up the Apple Vision Pro and since then I’ve been using it daily, mostly exploring it and trying to figure out what to do with it.

First things first, if you’re planning to pick up an Apple Vision Pro in Kuwait, you need to know that you won’t be able to pick the proper sized light seal. Before purchasing the AVP from the Apple Store, they ask you to scan your face so they could recommend the proper light seal. You can do that through the Apple Store app and according to the scan, I needed a size 21W. If you’re buying an AVP from the grey market, there is no way to know what size light seal you’re getting since Apple doesn’t mention the size on the outside of the box. So it depends on your luck, I ended up with the light seal size 33W which was what Apple recommended for my wife. It doesn’t fit well on my face but I’m dealing with it till my light seal arrives. I got a brand new one off eBay for $150 but Apple sells them for $199. So just something to keep in mind.

Secondly, the AVP prices in Kuwait are quite a bit cheaper than Apple prices in the US. The cheapest price I found locally was 999KD at Best Electronics. In comparison, it costs around 1,160KD in the States with tax, but without shipping to Kuwait. Expect to pay around 20-30KD on top of that to ship to Kuwait since the box is pretty heavy. But then again, if you don’t end up with the correct light seal size you’ll have to pay for that, but it would still be cheaper to buy it locally and you’ll end up having an extra light seal.

Other than that, if you already have a US Apple Store account which I assume everyone already has, then you’re pretty much set. If you have a Kuwait Apple Store account it won’t work in the AVP since the AVP is only available in the US at the moment. If you want to use streaming services like Disney and Max, you also need a smart DNS proxy. Disney Kuwait won’t work (uses app from Kuwait store) and I don’t think there is a VPN option on the AVP, but smart DNS is easier to set up anyway.

My first impression of the AVP? It’s difficult to explain. I love it, it’s definitely the future, but if you’re asking me if you should get one, then the answer is no. If you already got one or are planning to get one, then you made the right decision. It’s confusing I know but if you already decided on the AVP it’s most likely for the same reason as me, to be there at the start of what I think is the future, and not because it’s worth getting one now.

It’s such an incredible device, using it and doing things with it is like nothing else I’ve experienced, so much so that I keep wanting to share my experience with someone else. That’s what’s also so weird about the AVP, it’s such a solo device but yet the experiences are ones you want to share with others. I’ve been constantly annoying my wife asking her to put on the AVP so I could let her experience various things I got to experience.

I will have to do a proper review of the device, but right now I’ve mostly been using it for two things, watching TV and playing ToXun. ToXun is a game that randomly puts you somewhere on Earth in Google Street View, and you need to guess where you are in the world. It’s pretty difficult but I’ve been quite good at guessing at least which country I’m in.

Watching TV on the other hand is just a really really incredible experience. For one thing, you can now have a TV anywhere. I have just one TV by choice in my apartment, but with the AVP I can now set up a large Cinescape movie theater anywhere I want in my place. I’ve watched a variety of content so far from simple TV shows to what Apple calls Immersive Videos. I’m not sure how to describe immersive video because until I experienced it I hadn’t experienced anything like it anywhere. Imagine a super large Imax screen that towers above and below you but is also in 3D. Actually, I don’t think that describes it properly. Imagine, you’re standing inside the film watching, that’s what these videos feel like. There aren’t many of them but my favorite is called Adventure and takes place up high in the mountains where a female climber sets up a high line to cross over a cliff. It’s really well shot, the 3D scenes make me feel like I’m right there, and anywhere I look I see beautiful views. They’re not 360 videos, but they do wrap around your peripheral vision.

But your regular 3D movies look great as well. I was never a fan of 3D movies because of the glasses you had to wear and how they darkened the screen. With the AVP they’re much much better. I watched the movie Gravity last night in 3D inside my theater and it was incredible, I felt like I was up there with them in space.

So far the AVP has been a great experience. I just ordered a compact carrying case for it from Waterfield in case I want to travel with it and use it on the plane. Not sure I’d be comfortable doing that just yet, but will see how it goes.

If there is anything specific you want to know or want me to try out, let me know in the comments.

Over the weekend there was a bit of drama in Kuwait. Word got out that a PlayBoy model called Lina Bourghol was in Kuwait last week, and although it didn’t look like she did anything wrong while here, she still managed to ruffle some feathers.

Lina posted a photo of her in front of the Kuwait Towers which exacerbated the controversy. That photo now has over 3,000 likes but no comments since she closed it due to the abuse she was getting. In a video that popped up on my Tiktok feed she mentions that she doesn’t understand why authorities had a problem with her being in Kuwait, but were fine with Kim Kardashian being here. She denied that she was here because a guy paid her to come, and she brought up a good point that why would he bring her to Kuwait when they could fly out to a more interesting play like Miami. She said she came in here on a visit visa and that she wore the abaya everywhere she went out of respect for the local culture.

In any case she ended up leaving Kuwait, some people were saying she got deported but she mentions in her video she had left on her free will. The whole coming in on a visit visa thing I can believe since every now and then Tiktok pops up videos on my feed of what I assume are escorts temporarily in Kuwait. Don’t think there is a way to stop them from coming in unless you stop issuing visit visas completely.

Last week Kuwait came second in the IIHF World Championship Division IV, but a couple of days ago the Kuwait under 18 team lost 57-0 to Thailand in the opening game of the U-18 Asian and Oceania Championship. source

57 to 0!

It’s now considered to be the 5th worst beatdown in international hockey history. Kuwait only managed 1 shot at Thailands goal while Thailand had 122 shots on Kuwait.

Keep in mind hockey is composed of 3 periods of 20mins each, so Thailand basically scored 1 goal a minute. Pretty crazy but the good news is, it’s not the worst beatdown ever. The worst beatdown ever goes to the South Korea vs Thailand match from 1998 where South Korea beat Thailand 92-0. 57-0 would put the Kuwait game 5th on the list.

Kuwait’s goalie actually managed to make 65 saves, so the blame can’t all go to him. This was also Kuwait’s debut at the tournament.

The tournament is taking place in Uzbekistan, with nine teams – Thailand, Kuwait, India, Indonesia, Iran, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates. You can watch the full game above.

Update: In their second game, Kuwait were losing 17-0 against Uzbekistan in the first period when they decided to forfeit the game.

The Palestine Film Festival Kuwait kicks off tomorrow, (Thursday, April 25th) as part of the Palestine Days event that’s taking place this weekend at the Contemporary Art Platform in Shuwaikh.

The festival is dedicated to promoting and celebrating Palestinian life, art and culture, and they will be showcasing a curated selection of feature films, documentaries and shorts.

In addition to the films, there will also be book launches, talks and an exhibition by the Palestinian Cultural Center in which they will be selling beautiful, artisanal Palestinian products.

The event and screenings are free, but registration is required for the films as seats are limited. Find the registration form in the festival’s bio @palestinefilmfest_kuwait

This past Friday was the opening of the Ascend Rock Climbing Center in Hawally. Ascend initially started off as a small local community for climbing enthusiasts in Kuwait by a climbing enthuisiast, @ali.ascends.

I’ve been posting about Ali (and Ascend) for nearly 10 years now. I first found out about him in 2014 after he moved back to Kuwait from university and started recording videos of himself climbing random rock walls in Mutlaa. His aim from the very beginning was to build a climbing community in Kuwait and so he started the group “Kuwait Climbing” (later became Ascend).

The group used to meetup in Mutlaa as well as whatever climbing walls were available in Kuwait at that time. Ali eventually built a small climbing wall outside his family home which became popular, and later expanded it to meet the demand. Now I imagine the community is going to grow even larger with this new climbing center which he was able to open with the help of his partner Hanan, and the help of the climbing community.

The Ascend Rock Climbing Center located inside Emall in Hawally, across the street from Andalus Complex. The climbing center boasts the tallest climbing wall in Kuwait at 14.5m tall. I passed by yesterday for the opening and it was pretty busy with a lot of climbers from the region who had come to Kuwait to check out the center. There were even climbers who flew in from Europe, that should give you an idea of how much Ali is loved by the climbing community.

If you’re interested in getting into the sport of climbing, the center is open daily from 11AM to 11PM. The first hour of climbing costs 5KD and its then 2.5KD for every additional hour. There are also day passes as well as monthly memberships. For more information, check out @ascend.kw

I’ve only been drinking coffee since 2016, and since then I’ve been mostly been making my coffee at home. I started off with a De’Longhi bean to cup coffee machine, and then later upgraded to the Breville Oracle, followed by the Rocket Appartamento and then finally to a La Marzocco Linea Mini a couple of years ago. Along the way I upgraded my grinders as well, the first two machines had grinders built in, but with the Appartamento I got a Rocket Faustino Grinder for it, and with the Linea Mini I got the Mahlkönig X54 grinder.

I didn’t end up liking the X54 at all even though I love the Mahlkönig brand (they make some of the best commercial grinders). The X54 wasn’t very consistent, it was slow, and the grind adjustment knob felt horrible, the whole tactile experience actually was poor. Compared to the experience of using the commercial quality Linea Mini machine, the X54 felt very plasticky. So I decided I’d upgrade my grinder to one that would match the quality of my coffee machine. I did a lot of research and had eventually settled on the Ceado E37s.

I found a website online that would ship it to Kuwait and after their Black Friday discount and removing VAT, the price shipped to Kuwait was 525KD. Not cheap, but it was commercial quality, had large 83mm burrs and highly recommended by reviewers online. Just as I was about to make the plunge, I found out about the Mahlkönig E65S GbW. GbW stood for grind by weight, it was a new grinder by Mahlkönig where you could set the weight of coffee you wanted grinded, and then just place the portafilter into the machine and it would grind enough beans till it hit your weight. It was also fast, commercial grade, had a large adjustment ring as well as a large digital screen. It wasn’t cheap, online I found it for around 690KD after discount shipped to Kuwait, but since I knew the local dealer, I figured I could try and get a better deal locally.

The local dealer referred me to Coffee Tools who were selling the machine for a whopping 836KD (they since dropped it down to a more reasonable 731KD). I tried to work out a barter deal but that didn’t pan out but they did offer me a 25% discount which brought the price down from 836KD to 627KD. It was around 70KD cheaper than the price I found online so I decided to pull the trigger and get it (along with a much shorter 250g hopper). It was the best decision I made.

The E65S is such an incredible grinder. Firstly performance wise, it’s fast grinding out 18g of coffee in under 6 seconds (compared to 18-20 seconds of the X54). It’s also been really consistent and I’ve been using it daily since January. I don’t adjust the grind settings as much as I used to, and if I do it’s generally minor adjustments. It’s also really easy to adjust the grind size since the adjustment ring is large and the screen displays a digital read out of the distance between the two burrs. So I have my baseline set at 0.094mm and I generally adjust anywhere between 0.088 and 0.0096mm. It’s minor adjustments which I can do accurately because of the digital read out. But, the best feature is grind by weight. I use 18g of beans for my coffee, with regular grinders you use a timer to measure that out. So for example with my previous grinder, 18 seconds would grind around 18g of coffee, sometimes it would grind 16g in that time, sometimes 19g. It wasn’t a very efficient workflow either. You’d first put the portafilter on the scale and reset it to 0g, you’d then place portafilter in the grinder and have it grind for 18 seconds, you then put the portafilter on the scale again and see how much coffee it grinder, if its under 18g you have to put it back in grinder and manually grind a bit more coffee, if it’s more than 18g then you have to remove some coffee. It was a slow process and messy. The new workflow is so much better because of the grind by weight feature. All I have to do is place the portafilter into the grinder, and the grinder takes over and does all the calculations for me. As soon as I place the portafilter into the machine it starts grinding the coffee while measuring the weight. I think I read somewhere it does 6,000 calculations a second. Once the machine grinds 18g of coffee out, it stops and flashes green to let me know it hit the weight.

My coffee making process in the morning is a much more pleasant experience. I know a lot of people won’t understand or care about any of this, but as I’ve gotten older and I can afford nicer things, I’ve started caring about my experiences with objects a lot more. It could be a fork, it could be a car, I just like the experience of using nice things. My grinder and coffee machine are the first things I interact with in the morning. Then it’s my computer and then it’s my car. So having a good coffee making experience, then sitting in front of a fast computer with fast internet followed by driving to work in a 1970 Alfa Romeo, it’s really a great way to start the day. So would I recommend this grinder, yes. Do I recommend investing in expensive coffee equipment, for most people no. But if you enjoy using nice equipment and like the process of making coffee then yes. It’s actually cheaper to spend 3,000KD on coffee equipment than to have two coffees a day at a coffee shop. If you have 2 coffees a day, thats around KD1,460 you’re spending a year. So you’ll make your money back pretty quickly making coffee at home. If you’re married and your wife also drinks coffee then you’re going to make your money back twice as fast. And a commercial grade coffee machine is going to last a pretty long time at home.

I also highly recommend La Marzocco in Kuwait, their customer service department is one of the best I’ve experienced in Kuwait. Because they’re commercial machines, anytime I have an issue I’m treated like a coffee shop where any downtime is bad for business. I usually get a service person over either the same day if I report a problem in the morning, or the next day if I report a problem in the evening. So 5 stars to them.

Yesterday I went with a friend to Chipotle for lunch and to my surprise there was a pretty huge line. There were actually two lines, a really long line for the counter where they build your order, and another shorter line for the digital kiosks. But, here is a life pro tip, you can skip both lines by just placing the order through their website.

Instead of waiting in line to place my order, I just went to chipotleme.com and placed an order through the website and then just went up to the pick up counter and got my order from there. I placed the order at 3:21 and five minutes later at 3:26 I got an email telling me my order was ready to pick up.

The reason you get your order so quickly is because Chipotle have two prep lines, one for in person orders and another in the back for digital orders. There are a lot less people ordering through the kiosk or website so you’re basically skipping the line by going through one of those channels.

So next time you’re at Avenues and feel like having Chipotle, just order through your phone.