We’ve waited more than two years, and the day is finally here: April 25. Colorado Springs’ Illegal Pete’s location will open (after two soft-service days). It’s under Lulu’s Downtown at 32 S. Tejon St., and will be the Boulder-launched brand’s 14th location.
Aside from a pair of Arizona spots (in Tempe and Tucson), all Illegal Pete’s eateries are in Colorado, concentrated mostly around Denver. I’d rank the brand as still at the level of an independent-minded, regional restaurant group rather than a corporate chain, evidenced by down-to-earth, hands-on owner/founder Pete Turner and the company’s many community involvements, from sponsoring area comedians and urban gardens to feeding traveling bands for free via their Starving Artists initiative. (That’s particularly poignant given their new digs under an active performance stage.)
I spoke with Turner for half an hour earlier this week to learn more about Illegal Pete’s beginnings, aims, offerings and future plans, with a particular focus on what makes this Springs location special. I’m sharing excerpts from our convo, somewhat Q&A-style, edited for readability. Everything in quotes is Turner talking:
What’s a newcomer need to know about Illegal Pete’s?
“We turn 29 in August. We started in Boulder in 1995. We had two stores there, then moved to Denver in 2001. It’s been our home base ever since. We expanded into Arizona — the thinking there was we started in college towns, which Colorado Springs is a college town…
Illegal Pete’s is what I call ‘Mission-style’ Mexican… I was basing it off my trips to San Francisco’s Mission District.… but also we have a Mission Bay and Mission Beach in San Diego, so it refers to Northern and Southern California-style Mexican food that I grew up with. My Mom’s side of the family is from San Diego. So I’d go into the Baja Peninsula and have fish tacos. And then I was introduced to the Mission District when I was in college by some buddies of mine in the Bay Area. That’s where I drew the inspiration. At the core, that’s the menu: fast casual, and we have a full bar. Our menu’s more diverse than the typical fast-casual Mexican. And we do breakfast on the weekends…
Our vibe and atmosphere is different too. We have always set ourselves up so that people would spend time with us. So it’s more of a gathering spot. We welcome anyone to spend an hour or two, have a beer and get to know us that way. We’re not trying to turn and burn… but if you want us to-go, it’s a big part of our business too.”
Illegal Pete’s often gets compared to Chipotle. Is that fair?
“We’re just different. What Chipotle does I admire and respect. They do a great job, but it’s been many many years since I’ve thought of us as direct competition. There are many neighborhoods where we are across the street. We’re a block down from their original location on Evans [Avenue]. They do their business, and we crank, right. So I think it’s a fair and close comparison. We pay attention to what they do and admire how well-run and efficient they are.
But we are also leaders in our industry. And we believe in a living wage. It’s nice the zeitgeist coming out of COVID, once people had a chance to stop working and realize, ‘Like, look, man, this is unsustainable.’ Working two to three jobs in the industry is not fair… We did a living wage initiative whereby we raised our tipped minimum wage from 2015 to 2019 to $9 and $15, before tips. So we were ahead of that; we finished before COVID hit. We put our money where our mouth is…
On Tuesdays at all of our restaurants — we’ve done this since COVID — educators and healthcare workers get buy-one-get-one-free entrées… We like to have fun and say yes in the community.”
Why the Springs?
“There’s a lot of thought that goes into what communities we want to be a part of. We try to lean into the local community because we choose to do businesses in places that we care about. I have a lot of friends down there…
We have been looking at the Springs for a long time. As your readers know, it’s absolutely a boom town. That’s really, really cool to see. It turned out the landlords for that location [Derek Cohn and Brent Baldwin] sought me out. Derek is a very big fan of Illegal Pete’s. We were talking to him pre-COVID… He’s like, ‘You gotta come down and check out this corner.’ We were still in the thick of COVID and trying to dig out. But I came down and saw it knowing that A) I love Colorado Springs and we’ve wanted to be down there for years, and B) we think that location is fantastic, so it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up…
I will admit it’s big for us. It’s probably 40% bigger than our typical location. We signed up for more than we normally do, but we think it’s worthwhile. And once you see the building — we worked with a good friend who’s an interior designer, who worked for me in Boulder when she was 16 — we think it’s absolutely gorgeous. We put a ton of love and effort and money into it. We’ve got a stage in there for music. We’ve got all the new tools and systems in the back of the house. It’s by far the coolest, prettiest place we’ve done. ”
What took so long?
“We had some leadership changes. COVID had a long tail. We’re still seeing the inflation effects and supply chain issues that everybody saw, so it took us a long-ass time to get this open. In that time, we had two other stores we were working on, so it all bunched up. We just opened Wheat Ridge six weeks ago…
We could have pushed to do it. But there were other things we believe were more important to foundationally set us up for the next 25 years in business. So why rush it?… It was not cheap to sit on that rent, but it took building the right team and leadership and the right systems and tools and everything that I’ve been working on… I know people were kind of hazing us a little bit, like ‘Yeah, sure they’re gonna open,’ but, whatever, I’ve dealt with that before. I get it. But hopefully we’ll hit peoples’ expectations and it’ll be worth the wait… I think the answer really is, ‘Hey, we wanted to get it just right for you guys.’”
How did COVID factor into delays?
“In 2020 it was our 25th year in business. We were planning a big party, and all of a sudden it went from that into COVID, and like, ‘Oh shit, am I even going to make it?’ It was a lot of looking in and drawing back. So our expansion has looked more close to home since then. Let’s be a little bit more conservative.
COVID taught me a lot of lessons. It humbled me. I thought I knew a lot about life and my business after 25 years, and all of a sudden the world stops. You realize you kind of don’t know shit… every day is a lesson. Since COVID I’ve worked really hard to improve and question ‘Why do we do this? Why do we do that?’ Cleaner, safer, better is my mantra in my restaurant… I’ve gone super deep on really questioning and improving everything that we do. At the end of the day, that’s to provide a better service for all stakeholders: customers, community and our team members. In the last three years I’ve been more engaged in my business and more excited about my business maybe than ever.
I’ll be spending a ton of time down here. You’ll see me washing dishes. You’ll see me pitching in wherever I can. I’m in there elbow-deep… I had to run the whole day’s kitchen service in Wheat Ridge on the first Sunday of service because we had some personnel issues. And we were super busy. I was cooking. I was doing everything. I haven’t done that in 15 years. It was awesome. I freakin’ love it… I’m fully energized. If you come in you probably won’t know which one’s Pete except for my white beard.
What are Pete’s personal favorites?
“I get asked this a lot. A) What’s your favorite dish and B) Do you still eat this every day? Yeah, I eat Pete’s every day. I love it. Especially now, having been re-engaged and re-tooling a lot of our stuff trying to make it better… Our queso is a can’t miss. [It has even inspired the Illegal Pete’s Queso Cannabis Vape Cartridge.] Our house Margarita is the best deal in town, it’s $6.50 on happy hour. Our happy hour is 3-8, five hours every day… I’m really proud of all the food we do. Our Mexican Coke-braised carnitas are unbelievable. Our barbacoa is incredible. Our fish tacos are phenomenal — the taquitos, quesadillas. I’m basically telling you everything. Maybe that’s a cop-out.”
Who created the menu?
“They’re my recipes. I initially developed them in my parents’ kitchen. I was 22 or 23 years old. We’ve added recipes over the years, some of that has been with coworkers in the company. Some good old buddies of mine. We’ve never paid a consultant or chef to develop them…
I worked in restaurants growing up. My mom was a partner in an Asian restaurant. I was an English major by default when I went to CU back when it was actually affordable to go to college. But I always loved the restaurant business and food… I love it, obviously the social part, but I think we serve a really awesome function for people every day. Not only as employers, but as social gathering points. That third place. I’m proud to be a part of that… that’s maybe why we lean into all the music stuff, because it’s an extension of that.”
Tell us more about Illegal Pete’s connection to music and its Starving Artists Program. Are you a musician, too?
“I’m a hack guitarist, but I’m not a musician. I’m just a huge, huge music fan. I grew up appreciating local arts through my parents. My dad grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My great grandfather helped support Grant Wood when he was getting going — he painted American Gothic… I grew up hearing those stories and thinking that was pretty neat. So I think maybe that put the seed in me to help support, but I’ve always been a major, major music fan and nerd, and art fan and nerd… But it’s also, I believe, good business. Creating fans. The name of our game is hospitality… Touring is hard, so we can give them some support on the road.
So our Starving Artists Program is where we feed touring bands. We can’t feed all our bands from our hometowns because we’d go broke. But we’ve fed probably 6,000 bands over the years, including people that aren’t so starving, like Elton John, Kendrick Lamar and the Beastie Boys way back when… It’s fun for our teams too. I think it gets them motivated…
For our 20th anniversary we did a big concert up at Red Rocks with Nathaniel Rateliff right when he was coming up. And Built to Spill. It was open to the public, but the first 15 rows were all for current and past employees, plus one, free tickets. It was awesome, man; one of the best times I’ve ever had.”
So the new Springs location underneath a music venue must be pretty ideal?
“We believe it’s a phenomenal location being under Lulu’s. It’s all kind of fallen together and lining up really cool… I’ve known [Lulu’s owner] Marc [Benning] for quite a while through his partner Lisa Gedgaudas. She’s a good friend of mine from Denver, she works at Denver Arts & Venues. I’m so excited they took that space over… Our values are very aligned. It’s a match made in heaven partnership I think. We’ll definitely be feeding all the bands rolling through there. I’ve also been buddies with the Black Sheep people forever, and the guys at Vultures. We’ve reached out to have them send their bands through.
What does the future hold?
“What’s next is we open South Boulder, Table Mesa, which will be our third location in Boulder. That’s imminent, like six weeks from now. And then, four weeks after that, we reopen our Denver University location, which we shut down at the end of the year for a major remodel. So we have a ton going on now, and all stacked on top of each other. That’s just the way it laid out. But beyond that, if these stores work out, we are looking to grow. I’ve got people, actually even our landlord, talking about North Colorado Springs as an opportunity. We think another location or two in the Springs makes sense. But let’s see how these go. I need to get these doors open first.”
See the full Illegal Pete’s menu at illegalpetes.com.
This article was originally published at Side Dish With Schniper and reprinted with permission.
