Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG 0.81%) has been a top growth stock in the restaurant industry for years. Its rapid growth has made it a top investment to own, with shares rising by 300% over the course of the past decade.

Recently, however, the company lost its CEO, Brian Niccol, to Starbucks. Even the excitement surrounding Chipotle’s 50-for-1 stock split hasn’t been enough to prevent shares from falling of late. In the past three months, the stock is down 13%.

Is Chipotle’s stock in trouble, or could this recent decline be a great buying opportunity for investors?

The company’s growth prospects remain impressive

While many restaurants have struggled to grow their top lines without relying heavily on price increases, Chipotle has proven to be the exception. When the company last reported earnings in July, its quarterly revenue for the period ending June 30 rose 18% to $3 billion. And its same-store sales growth was an impressive 11%, with higher transactions representing the bulk of the growth (nearly 9%) and higher prices boosting the numbers by an additional 2%.

For many restaurants, achieving even single-digit comparable sales numbers is impressive, let alone double-digit increases, as is the case for Chipotle. And to have that being primarily driven through increased traffic is exceptional. Same-store numbers only compare restaurants that have been open for more than a year, and thus, the metric gives investors a better insight into the company’s true organic growth, as it excludes the impact of additional store openings.

Chipotle has averaged an overall growth rate of around 16% over the past five years, and its recent numbers have come in even better.

CMG Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts

A change in CEO doesn’t necessarily put the company in a bad position

Investors were bearish on Chipotle’s stock after learning that its CEO was leaving the company, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the business is in trouble. With Starbucks offering Niccol an attractive compensation package to lure him away from the fast-growing restaurant chain, it may have simply been an offer that was too good for the executive to refuse.

Given its strong growth numbers and plans for continual expansion, there’s no reason to worry that Chipotle will somehow go on the wrong path from here. The company’s interim CEO, Scott Boatwright, has been with the company since 2017 and has most recently been its chief operating officer. Chipotle isn’t replacing Niccol with someone outside the business and who may be unfamiliar with it.

With Boatwright, the company has a CEO who has been integral in Chipotle’s growth in recent years, and who may be likely to continue with the current path and growth strategy. While there could be changes, there’s no reason as of now to expect any drastic ones.

Should you buy Chipotle stock?

Chipotle investors may not like to see that their CEO has opted to leave, but that doesn’t mean the company is somehow in a worse position. If, however, it results in a further decline in price, this could indeed create a buying opportunity for investors to buy shares of an exceptional restaurant chain.

Trading at 50 times its estimated future earnings (according to analyst expectations), Chipotle’s valuation remains high, and that may be the biggest reason to hold off on buying the restaurant stock right now — not a change in CEO. I’d argue that a correction in the stock price was overdue because the stock was trading at such a high premium.

Chipotle stock can still be a good buy if you’re planning to hang on to it for the long term (e.g., several years), but I would wait to see if there’s more bearishness from investors that sends its price even lower. At a lower earnings multiple, there would be at least some potential margin of safety and not as much future growth priced into the stock’s valuation, making it more probable that investors can earn a high return.