When Pete Turner opened the first Illegal Pete’s on The Hill in Boulder in 1995, he quickly gained a following for his $5 burrito deal. He soon expanded to Denver, where he built his fast-casual burrito chain into a local darling. While its Denver-style Mission-style rival Chipotle went global, Illegal Pete’s kept the community’s heart with top-notch queso, a bar, and a program that supported local artists.
But then a couple years ago, something seemed to change. The vibe shifted. Nasty comments started showing up online. There were allegations of Pete slashing worker benefits, deteriorating food quality (including the famous queso), and some pretty harsh texts leaked from Pete to his employees.
So we invited Pete onto the City Cast Denver podcast today to ask what’s up — listen to the whole conversation here 🎧
Is the Food Worse Quality?
One online commenter claiming to work at the DU location said that their store recently received a delivery of “steak” that was actually pork, and they ended up serving “medium rare” pork for a month. The commenter alleged that the DU location was “ground zero for a food poisoning epidemic” that was “not taken seriously at all.” Pete says that is absolutely not true and insists that he’s made no changes to the quality of his ingredients.
He did acknowledge, however, that the company has experienced some “growing pains.” He opened three new locations in 2024, fully remodeled a fourth, and hired 200 new workers in the space of five months. “We’re certainly not perfect,” Pete told us. “We made mistakes, and I think there probably was a period where our consistency had been challenged.” But the quality of the ingredients he is sourcing, he emphasized, has not changed.
Did He Cut Employee Benefits?
One of the most serious allegations we saw online was that Pete recently slashed the company’s PTO policy and, except for sick days, denied workers PTO until they’ve been with the company for four years. Pete acknowledged this is true.
Pete’s employees used to begin accruing PTO at three months, but “in the depth of the pandemic,” he says “we had to be tight.” So why not change the policy back now that the pandemic restrictions are over?
“COVID is gone, but it's got a long f***ing tail. I mean, you see it out here [downtown]. There's potentially the assumption that we're taking advantage of COVID or something by taking away benefits, but the fact is we need to stay in business.”
Is the Queso Worse Now?
The truth is that the ingredients are the same, but the process is different. As reported by The Denver Post last July, Illegal Pete’s recently hired local food commissary Tico’s Mexican Foods to make big batches of queso that are then shipped to the various restaurants in bags and reheated. Previously, everything was cooked in-house. Why the change? Pete says it was to address inconsistency across stores.
As for whether the quality of the queso is down, Pete told us customers generally seem to be satisfied. Sales are steady after the change, but the negative feedback online still hurts. “I've had to do a lot of soul searching around all of that. Did we make that decision for the right reasons? And the answer is yes.”
Is Pete Not Treating People Right?
One anonymous reddit user posted screenshots of texts that Pete apparently sent to the staff of the DU location after some personnel changes. The text reads: “This is what I expect from you and what you can expect from me: hard work with a smile, open communication, […] and f***ing gratitude for having a job in a business that serves an enthusiastic public.”
Pete told us he stands by that 100%. “That's sort of my lesson coming out of COVID: ‘Holy f***, we made it.’ We should absolutely be grateful, like truly grateful. There are restaurants shuttering every single day. You're walking by 50 of them on the mall,” he said. “I feel like I don't need to defend myself, but the fact is, it is a good job.”
At the same time, Pete says that earlier this year he enrolled himself in Illegal Pete’s manager program. “Last year was a ton of work … and we didn’t deliver, not consistently,” Pete told us. “I think we're not terrible — but [terrible enough] to the point where I need to go back in [to the stores] and understand, are we the business that I set out to build 30 years ago?”
