When Pete Turner saw a recent thread on Reddit criticizing Illegal Pete’s queso, “it hurt our hearts,” he said.
“We were at the Illegal Pete’s downtown this week and got the queso, as always,” the Reddit user wrote on the Denver foodie page. “Only to find out it’s no longer the glorious, gooey flavorful recipe. Someone said it comes in a bag now 🙁 the new queso tastes chalky, looks gloopy and is pale yellow.”
Despite the sting, Turner knows the customer is always right, and “they notice because they care that much, and I want them to pay attention to what we’re doing,” he said.
In this case, though, the customer was only half right. Illegal Pete’s recently hired Tico’s Mexican Foods, a local food-manufacturing commissary, to make its queso “for consistency’s sake.” The product does arrive in a bag, but “the recipe is the exact same,” Turner said.
“Cheese and milk on an open flame can be tricky. You can break it really easily, and that was happening quite often in our restaurants,” he continued. “Breaking” is a cooking term that is used when the elements of a sauce separate over high heat.
Turner, who opened the first Illegal Pete’s in Denver in 1995, was hesitant to hand over his secret queso recipe to just anybody. But he has a long history with the Canino family, owners of Tico’s. The late Clyde Canino Sr. was a longtime restaurateur and founder of Piccolo, a 50-year-old local Mexican chain that shuttered its last restaurant in April last year.
“Because they come from a restaurant background, they’re not cutting corners,” Turner said. “We’re paying 2 1/2 times more to outsource this labor.”
In 2008, Illegal Pete’s took over a former Piccolo at 1744 E. Evans Ave. near the University of Denver, and Turner immediately took to Canino Sr. “My dad was my original partner,” Turner said. “He was terminally ill with cancer, so he passed away two years in. Clyde just reminded me so much of my dad.”
Tico’s, now run by Canino Sr.’s son Marty, agreed to make Illegal Pete’s queso the exact same way it’s been made in each of the local burrito chain’s 15 kitchens. They went through multiple trial-and-errors to get it just right. “They’re grating our three types of block cheese,” Turner said. “They’re making our extra hot salsa. They’re roasting chiles de arbol, which used to smoke out our kitchens.”
Tico’s, at 2011 S. Bannock St., is a little over a mile away from Illegal Pete’s DU location. “This feels akin to having a great friend in the restaurant game with a bigger kitchen backyard,” said Brooke Charlesworth, Illegal Pete’s vice president of operational services. “Marty will just be like, ‘I can throw a batch on for you this afternoon.’ He’s just an extension of what we’re doing.”
Illegal Pete’s started testing the Tico’s-made batches at its two busiest locations (Wheat Ridge and Broadway) in March, and fully rolled it out at all locations at the start of July.
When Turner first heard word about customers’ negative reviews, he discovered that there was a procedural error at a store level, rather than a problem with their new partners. The queso is simply bagged for delivery and food safety reasons. After it arrives, the cooks heat up the bagged queso in a water bath. “They were doing it wrong, let’s put it that way,” Turner said. “So we reset expectations.”
Tico’s uses steam-jacketed kettles to cook three tons of queso for Illegal Pete’s weekly. “It just makes a better product than we can do in the restaurants because it completely surrounds the sauce so you’re not getting direct flames, and treats it gently,” Charlesworth said.
Although Turner knows that bagged food can have “a negative connotation,” he said he’s confident that the integrity of the product is being upheld.
“We’re not Chipotle or Qdoba, where a majority of the ingredients come from a bag,” he said. “We’re a very busy restaurant. We butcher pork and beef. We braise carnitas and barbacoa overnight. We’re dicing tomatoes. We’re doing everything we can to make fresh food, and this will free up time and allow us to zero in on making even better guac or pico.”
Originally Published: July 31, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.
