Illegal Pete's - Pearl

Fast casual restaurant with cheap margaritas and beers. Think of this as similar to Chipotle or Qdoba with alcoholic beverages. Ordering is fast and efficient as you order at the counter and select all the ingredients you want in your burrito, bowl, taco, or quesadilla. Bowls come with either tortillas or chips on the side. We also added a small side of queso to go with the chips, and it was quite tasty!The have daily happy hour from 3-8PM with specials on the house margaritas, house beer, chips & queso. Overall, would definitely recommend for fast casual dining or even stopping by for happy hour and some chips & queso.

This Chipotle-style Mexican eatery serves up some good fare at reasonable prices. My colleagues recommend their burritos. I chose a bowl to make eating easy. You can customize your bowl with the various toppings on offer. The adjacent bar area is for those who want to have drinks.My bowl was portioned well for lunch. I wouldn't mind coming again. Next time I'm going for their generously portioned nachos.

What a nice chance to visit Pete's on Pearl Street again. It's been a while and I have to say, the people are as friendly and helpful as ever. We had our favorite option, their design-it-yourself nachos. The portion was huge as you can see in the picture. They were especially generous with the barbacoa, tender moist shredded beef, not greasy at all, their famous queso, guac, and many more items. They were amused that I asked for lots of cilantro as I am almost addicted to it. I recognize many people have a different reaction to cilantro, but I have been know, when in a group and those people try to pass off their decorative sprigs from their plates, I am always a willing taker. My husband had one of his favorite beers and I had their always fresh iced tea. The music was not to my liking today but it varies a lot and often is just great. Everyone is welcome here, from families with young children, seniors like us and many college age and 20 somethings as well as middle aged professional. Since to was Easter weekend, a large group of college aged adults came in all wearing pink bunny eared headbands. Very cute.We will continue to frequent this location. Even with the issues that have been apparent in very recent times on the Mall, on a day like today, it seemed like people were making an effort to enjoy themselves. The holiday atmosphere help a lot. And I have neve had bad service from the staff in more than a dozen visits.

It's been a while since I've been here And wow. What horrible service. I'm only doing 3 stars because of the person who took & ultimately fulfilled my order. They were awesome. Idiots at the cash register were sullen & rude, bordering on hostile. I like to support local businesses and this is one I no longer will support.

Cliff Notes Version: if you want to have sneeze guard protected food troughs serving you a chipotle ripoff meal, without either the class and charm of a gas station attached Subway... well, by god you've found your place. In my last visit i somehow was the 1st customer served and given a cold dine-in burrito. It does have the ambiance of the first cheat dump HS kids come to on their lunch break, so there's that. It's complete trash. I Can't wait until they bring this serve-you-from-a-trough experience in the new S. Boulder location. The staff is quite nice. I feel sorry for them, having to work in a dump...and that is me being polite about the place. Calling it a boulder staple would make anyone embarrassed to discuss food in Boulder. Literally any other spot on pearl street would be a better choice. Go to Rocket Fizz, buy gum for lunch, and rest easy that you dodged a bullet here.**Illegal Pete's did not pay me for this review, nor did Rocket Fizz pay me for an endorsement.

I was downtown Friday picking up some race stuff, when I needed to carb and protein load for my run. Lucky I was next to IPs! I've personally never tried it but was pretty impressed! I grabbed some Baja fish tacos and a lager. The food was fresh, fish crispy, and salsa flavorful. Really enjoyed it and would grab again. Living in co fish can be hot or miss. Beer was fresh too. Great time and will return! Of course I forgot to take a food photo before I ate it so fast.

The food is passable but the staff moves like they've been stoned for 180 days straight.

This food is just ok. I've had take out a couple times and haven't been amazed by anything. I don't like the flavor of their olives and I don't know why. I've had canned olives before, but these ones have a super weird flavor that I've never experienced anywhere else. The steak burrito was ok. Good filling to meat ratio but the steak was chewy as I found the other stuff in there to be kind of dry as well. Good spice level though. Overall nothing amazing and there's way better food elsewhere.

they just got a fresh bin of rice and plopped maybe a third of a scoop onto my burrito. then I asked more rice for him to proceed to put FOUR GRAINS OF RICE MORE. plus the attitude was crazy from the girl "mixing" the burrito tg. soda just tastes like carbonation no flavor. a stupid piece of pink shit landed in my shit and tasted sweet. KILLED THE VIBE OF MY WHOLE BURRITO.The line was out the door and filled up the entire seating area basically. THIS PLACE SUCKS

I'm a long time Pete's customer. Their employees are amazing and I've loved eating here all my life but the recent change in ingredients and cooking style has really brought down the quality of the food :( beans and rice here now taste like bland paste (will delete if they fix the food,,,,literally devastating bruh)