Chipotle tests lower-priced menu items.

Despite a 22.7 percent revenue increase in a year that clobbered other restaurant chains, Chipotle Mexican Grill announced a trial run in April of a new menu in its Denver-area restaurants featuring smaller portions and cheaper prices.

Fans of Chipotle's giant burritos can be excused for wondering if the Denver-based chain is messing with a good thing after a year in which it opened 136 new restaurants to bring its total to more than 830 stores and generated $78 million in profits.

"We have found that many of our customers don't recognize the variety that exists within our menu, and that customers are sometimes unsure what to order," said founder and Chairman Steve Ells in a press release. "With this menu, we are communicating the nature of variety more clearly, while still making great food affordable and accessible."

The menu changes include some new entree options, smaller-sized offerings at lower prices (dubbed the "Low Roller" menu) and a new kids' menu. The Low Roller menu includes soups starting at $2.99, single tacos for $2.25 and side salad for $2.95. By comparison, Chipotle's Classic Burrito sells for $5.95 and its Camitavore (pork) burrito sells for $6.35.

Chipotle spokesman Chris Amold said there's no timetable for how long the Denver-area menu test will run before Chipotle either scraps it or adopts it at restaurants beyond Denver.

"We're looking to see how the new menu works for us operationally and what customers like and don't like," Arnold said. "We put up the menu and we'll see how things go, and that includes the idea of rolling this out to other markets or even nationally. For now, we've made no plans to do anything with it beyond Denver."

Chipotle has used its home base of Denver to test other new wrinkles in the past. In late 2007 it tried out the more healthful brown rice at some local Chipotles before reverting back to the old standby white cilantro lime rice.

Chipotle isn't alone in its offering of more economical options. Another Denver-based quick-serve chain, Quizno's, launched a New Lower Prices campaign in January and followed that up in late March with Toasty Torpedoes, sandwiches prepared on extra-long, extra slim bread for $4 at participating locations.

"We realize almost everyone is feeling the pinch in today's economy," said Rebecca Steinfort, chief marketing officer for Quizno's.