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Punk rockers Boss' Daughter enjoy some Illegal Pete's
Editor’s Note: Illegal Pete’s is a fast-growing burrito-focused multi-unit in Colorado and Arizona. Ed Avis, publisher of el Restaurante, spoke with Ilegal Pete’s founder Pete Turner in early August. This is the second of three Q&A articles based on that interview. Click here to read the first installment of this interview, when Turner described the beginnings of his restaurant. And click here to read the third installment, where Turner talks about reusing old buildings for his restaurants.
Ed Avis: Tell me about Illegal Pete’s Starving Artists program.
Pete Turner: So that is a really cool program that we sort of informally started when we were on the Hill in Boulder. There's a theater up there called the Fox Theater, where really great bands had come through. It's rumored that Jimi Hendrix had played there, the Eagles played there, fresh shows there before they went to California and Europe. So you get all these great bands up there. So informally, just even with that first restaurant, these musicians would roll through. Like Jack Johnson when he was coming up, we'd find him and he kind of name dropped us. We've got photos of him wearing our T-shirt on stage.
We sort of formalized it in 2011, I think. We let any traveling band that comes through -- we can't feed all the local bands or we go broke -- but any traveling band in their tours, we feed them. So they just need to get in touch with us. We give 'em a voucher and they roll through. Like we're feeding three bands today.
It's hard being on the road as up and coming musician. But we fed Elton John, we fed the Cure. We fed Kendrick Lamar, we fed the Beastie Boys, Tenacious D. They're not starving at all, but it's cool that they use the program. But we feed, I mean, we fed Guns N Roses a year ago. Mostly they're roadies, but 20 people.
So it's kind of fun. It's basically a way just kind of help out. And what we ask is that they just give us a shout out to the social media and just say thanks.
How many bands do you typically feed in a year?
That's a great question. It really ebbs and flows, depends. But I see all the forms that come through. I mean, we have fed probably 6,000, 8,000 people.
Years ago, we kind of had a map going. We feed people from all over the planet. I mean, we are feeding people from Iceland and Europe. It's pretty cool. But yeah, we should get back to tracking that. We just had our eyes on other things during Covid. But it is fun because you are hopefully helping folks out that are from all over the place. Some are definitely starving, some aren't, but it's pretty neat that you can make an impact on that.
And then right now we're talking to Meow Wolf [editor’s note: Meow Wolf is a funky arts venue that Illegal Pete’s partnered with earlier this year] about adding, as part of our starving artist program, having Meow Wolf give them passes to go see Meow Wolf. Because during the day when you do soundcheck and then you got, I don't know, six hours to kill, a lot of times you spend that drinking, well, why not? Instead of that, go check out Meow Wolf, right? So we're working on that right now. So you get fed at Pete's and then go to Meow Wolf, which to me seems like a pretty cool hospitality gesture for people visiting Denver and probably makes Denver a more special place to these bands.
Absolutely. Now, how do you let these bands know that this program exists?
Members of group 21 Pilots are fans of Illegal Pete's
So we have a lot of partnerships with all the promoters, like LiveNation, AEG, even the smaller guys. We just let 'em know. And then the promoters are telling their bands when they're rolling through to use the program. And then it's on our website. And I think it's kind of word of mouth at this point too. You see a lot of the bands telling other people when they're shouting out on Instagram or whatever, they're putting “Starving Artists Program Illegal Pete’s.” And so it kind of spreads that way.
The flip side to this is we have an internal program whereby we get tickets to basically any concert. Some are harder; if they're sold out at Red Rocks, that's harder. We have a QR code internally where our employees put their name in to get tickets to all concerts coming through.
So the bands fill out a form on your website? How do you qualify them?
I mean, you just need to be a band that's not from Colorado, basically. And we don't really vet them. It's kind of hard, especially a lot of these bands that play at the underground places, the really starving artists. There's a lot of trust there. I'm sure we get taken advantage of a little bit, but that kind of comes with the territory. We want to be generous, and we want that spirit of hospitality and grace. You're going to get burned a little bit. So we do a little bit of vetting, but I mean, not much.
And you feed however many people they ask for, or is there some limit?
Yeah, we try to accommodate. I mean, like Billy Strings, when he was coming up, we would feed 12 of his guys, and we still do. And like I said, Guns N Roses. Of course, I'm an old huge Guns N Roses fan. I'm like, yeah, how many people you got? I think it was 20 or 25. I can't remember. But it is just fun. It's kind of special for us. It's just a source of pride.
And I think think our customer base and our communities appreciate it. I think staff loves seeing these people roll through.
Yeah. I mean, it's kind of funny. God, when was Kendrick Lamar here? It was pre Covid, but at midnight, I think he rolled through with one or two people. I mean, he's huge, right? He came through downtown Denver with just one other person. It is wild, man. It's pretty neat.
Click here to read the first installment of this interview, when Turner described the beginnings of his restaurant. And click here to read the third installment, where Turner talks about reusing old buildings for his restaurants.
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