Ryan "El Jefe" Lopez recently launched a GoFundMe to raise $10,000 for El Jefe's Smothered Brats & Tots. "COVID took a chunk out of us and we fought to stay alive. Sadly, though, we had a lot of costly issues in 2023," he writes. "The year took a lot out of the El Jefe's team mentally, physically and emotionally. We are barely hanging on. We want to keep El Jefe's going but we need some help from all you, our friends. Please if you can help, we would greatly appreciate it!"
In May 2023, we spoke with Lopez and co-ower Renee "La Jefa" Ruybal about their business:
"My aunt owned a bakery and my grandmother owned a restaurant. So growing up, I'd go and help them out," says Lopez. "I always loved cooking, and I was going to go to culinary school, but then I had kids early. So I ended up being a single dad for a while."
Instead of cooking professionally, he worked in IT for several years in order to support his two young children until around five years ago, when his company entered a period of mass layoffs. "They didn't let me go, but they were doing layoffs. So I was like, 'It's not safe here. Maybe I'll open a food truck,'" Lopez recalls.
As he considered the option, he confided in Ruybal. "We were living together and talking about it," she says. "I worked, and still work, in ophthalmology, and he really wanted to open a food truck, so I was like, 'I'm on board — let's do it.'"
They set off to do more research. "We went to food truck carnivals, visited a lot of food trucks, and then talked about what type food would work and looked at the market," Ruybal recalls. "He was really looking at the business aspect of a food truck, which was good," but the couple found themselves struggling to nail down a concept.
"We were originally going to do Huevos on Wheels," Lopez says. "A bunch of deviled eggs and bar food. And then we were thinking, there's not a good profit margin with that, so we pivoted and decided maybe burgers and fries, but then we saw there were a bunch of trucks doing that." So they pivoted again. "We decided smothered brats because we both love brats, and then she wanted to do homemade tater tots, so she spent a year figuring out how to make them."
The tot flight with three offerings: Colorado Poutine (top left), Colorado Tot (bottom left) and Elote Tot (right).
Chris Byard
"We should have done a soft opening, but instead were excited and decided to go all in and picked a bar spot that was busy — and we got destroyed," Lopez adds.
After that experience, Lopez turned to his aunt for encouragement and reassurance. "She's a professional chef, and she told me, 'Don't worry, it happens. Even as professional chefs, we don't automatically learn how to do mass amounts of stuff. You'll learn how to do it, and you'll be okay,'" Lopez recalls. The encouragement kept the two going.
Now in their fourth year of operation, Lopez and Ruybal are having a blast. "The most fun is traveling around and meeting people, and the food truck community is definitely its own little community," Ruybal says. "You get to meet other truckers and talk about things and try food and go to breweries and events."
"I think the best part is doing specials," Lopez adds. "I like coming up with new recipes. Right now we're doing a Korean dog," which is a bacon chicken sausage topped with honey chile and Korean barbecue sauces along with kimchi, sriracha mayo and green onions. Lopez adds, "I love coming up with new hot sauces, because we make all of our sauces. We're trying to branch out and build our hot sauce business because we do a lot of hot sauce bottle sales. We're gonna try doing stores and getting into restaurants, and hopefully get on Hot Ones." If El Jefe accomplishes that goal, it will be following in the footsteps of another Denver brand, Sauce Leopard.
The truck currently offers its pineapple habanero Green Goblin hot sauce as well as a raspberry jalapeño flavor that is used on Ruybal's favorite menu item, the Big Popper. It's a Polidori hot Polish sausage that's also topped with jalapeño cream cheese, bacon and jalapeño slices. "I usually eat vegetarian, so I get the vegetarian brat," she adds. "And then I eat the elote tots," which are loaded with grilled street corn slaw, avocado cilantro sauce and cotija cheese. "I eat those all the time," she says.
"I really like our secret item, the Colorado Poutine," Lopez notes. "It's our homemade tots with our award-winning homemade green chile, our homemade sausage country gravy, bacon and cheddar cheese. It's so good."
One day, Lopez and Ruybal hope to open a fast-food, drive thru-style restaurant. But for now, you can find the truck's schedule on its website, eljefessbt.com.
