The video snippet left an acrid taste in some people’s mouths.
A Denver health inspector wearing a blue shirt with a city logo poured bleach from a jug into tubs containing guacamole, limes, beverages and salsas at a popular Mexican-food stand. When the video went viral — garnering public backlash on social media — city officials defended the worker and her actions, saying the stand, Tacos Tacolorado, had violated several health and safety codes and was operating without a license.
The stand had also failed to comply with inspectors’ orders after previous visits, according to the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. That night, its meat, shredded cheese, tomatoes and salsas sat at 20 degrees over their safe temperatures, according to the inspection report, while employees didn’t have a hand-washing station or hot water. When the business moved some of the food into a locked truck, the inspector “denatured” the rest using bleach so it couldn’t be sold or consumed, officials said.
But Tacos Tacolorado isn’t the only mobile food business that has risked causing a foodborne illness, a Denver Post analysis of local health citations and licensing records from this year found. Dozens of street vendors and caterers were cited by health inspectors this year for infractions they said posed an imminent hazard to public health.
Of those, more than 20 were unlicensed vendors. Inspectors fined them a combined $23,500, records show. While many of those vendors addressed their violations and registered with the city, others are still in operation but have yet to apply for a permit, according to licensing records and activity verified by the Denver Post.
But the whereabouts of a vendor’s permits to operate on city streets isn’t something food inspectors are “diving deep” into during inspections, said Felicia Usui, a food safety supervisor at the public health department.
“We’re not concerned about if they have a license or not. We’re concerned about how they’re handling their food,” Usui said. “We treat our unlicensed businesses and our licensed businesses the same.”
‘It’s not fair’
The number of registered food trucks and carts in Denver has grown steadily over the last three years, surpassing 700 in November 2025, according to the licensing department.
More than a dozen investigators are charged with routinely inspecting retail food businesses, Usui said. When they flag one, they typically follow up to see if the business has resolved its issues.
About half of the unlicensed vendors cited have since applied for permits or renewed expired licenses, according to a search of internal records by the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. Nine had yet to register or renew their licenses. A handful of those are serving food or advertising their services, according to interviews, social media activity and contact over the phone.
It’s a situation that has drawn the ire of some licensed street vendors who have had to throw away food or close down for weeks after being cited by health inspectors.
“It’s not fair to pay taxes, renew licenses, rent a lot and commissary space… only for someone to set up and start selling food,” said Angel Mora, whose food truck, El Sabor de Mi Puebla, is stationed outside of a convenience store on South Federal Boulevard.
The citations shared by the city departments are just snapshots of a much larger ecosystem of delinquent food trucks, however. Some unlicensed businesses court customers and identify their locations using WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram and other social media channels, Usui said. That they’re mobile can make them harder to track down.
Sandra Gonzalez, who with her husband runs Moreno’s Corn, a cart outside a tortilleria in west Denver, laughed when asked if people sell food in the city without the proper permits.
“Yes,” she said. “There are many.”
Tacos Tacolorado was one such operation, hopping from city to city, with health departments corresponding by email about its whereabouts, Usui said. Its business filings connected it to a vendor in California, the Denver Post reported.
Inspectors visited the business twice before the night of Saturday, Nov. 15, when the filmed incident took place. But by that time, Tacos Tacolorado’s TikTok account had garnered hundreds of thousands of views and a steady clientele.
Videos captured a sprawling operation. Employees set up at work stations sliced sizzling meats off an al pastor “trompo,” ladled pink and yellow aguas frescas from a plastic container and pulled apart gooey cheese on top of fajitas. “LA STYLE TACOS IN DENVER CO,” read the superimposed text of one video from October. Food influencers on TikTok also helped the business take off. One account, Jesfoodie, touted the flavor of its tacos in a video also posted in October that had 220,000 views. Another from that month showed a long line of diners waiting to order on a cold night.
Gonzalez said a pair of her customers at Moreno’s Corn told her they had waited in line at the stand for two hours. “How can [these unlicensed businesses] not be afraid when there are inspectors from the city? And you could get someone sick?”
Inspectors ordered the business to cease and desist. Tacos Tacolorado has not applied for an operating license, according to the licensing department. The last video on its TikTok page was posted on Nov. 11.
Another unlicensed food truck, Churro Madness (stylized #CHURROMADNESS), also drew crowds and positive reviews in metro Denver in 2025. It was cited by health inspectors in April for a litany of health violations, including not storing its sweet cream at a temperature of 41 degrees or lower, and not prepping its ingredients in a commissary, a common infraction among trucks. Its operator was fined $1,250, though health department records show the fine was later rescinded. The inspector ordered Churro Madness to close down.
The business and its operator have yet to apply for a permit with the city, according to the licensing department.
An Instagram account for Churro Madness was linked to a larger churro operation in Southern California. Under its tagged photos, however, a post advertised the cart as a vendor at this year’s Mile High Trunk or Treat, a large Halloween fair held at Empower Field at Mile High — many months after it was ordered to stop operating.
An organizer for the festival, Mimi Luong, confirmed that a business named Churro Madness was present that night, among many other vendors, and had submitted one-day permits for the event. When contacted on its Instagram account, Churro Madness stated its business was based in Southern California and didn’t participate in the Mile High Trunk or Treat.
Another street vendor, Mischief Pizza, was cited by health inspectors for not having a handwashing sink and fined $1,000 for posing an imminent hazard. It was ordered to cease and desist. But its operator was still advertising its openings as of November on the Denver Food Truck Directory Facebook page. The business had yet to apply for a license in Denver as of early December, according to the licensing department.
A business called Delhi Pizza, meanwhile, was visited by inspectors in March and cited for having no running water. Its operator was hit with a $1,000 fine and told to cease and desist, according to the licensing department. No business under the name of the truck or its operator had registered with the city, according to the licensing department. A number for the business listed online was picked up by someone who said Delhi Pizza would be open Friday, Dec. 12, and would share its location on WhatsApp.
‘Just doing their jobs’
Two Mexican food trucks that were fined $1,000 each for health violations this year, Los Reyes del Taco y Mas and Tortas El Pelucas, have applications pending with the city but are still open for business, the Denver Post confirmed in person and through activity on the Denver Food Truck Directory page on Facebook.
Mora with El Sabor de Mi Puebla, who opened his food truck more than a decade ago in an area populated with street vendors, said the urgent need by some operators to earn money may lead them to rush past official channels.
“It’s sad,” he said of unlicensed operators. “We all need to work to sustain ourselves.”
He felt the heat from inspectors earlier in 2025 when they found he was cooking meat for al pastor tacos without any hot water, according to an inspection report. He had to confirm his permitting status because of a prior violation, the report stated, and throw away an estimated $200 to $300 worth of meat, he said.
Most of the 20 or so food trucks designated as unlicensed and imminent health hazards by inspectors this year served Latin or Mexican food.
Only three of the unlicensed vendors cited this year have paid their fines, health department records show. The department reported most of the unpaid fines to collection agencies.
A health department spokesperson said citation records are not searchable by license status and thus, the records shared with the Denver Post are comprehensive but may be incomplete. The reporting of this story was also mostly limited to unlicensed street vendors. Licensed mobile-food vendors were also routinely cited this year for risk of foodborne illness, health department records show.
Many of the offending cooks got their paperwork in order and fixed their problems after some time. Though inspectors determined them to be unlicensed, some, including El Sabor de Mi Puebla, had simply forgotten to renew their permits.
Gonzalez and her husband closed Moreno’s Corn for a month following a health inspection in May that cited them for, among other things, not washing their corn before grilling and cutting it. Though they had to throw away their food the day they were cited, Gonzalez said she found the inspector helpful.
“They’ve never been rude,” she said. “They’re just doing their jobs.”
Using bleach or denaturing liquid to make food inedible is a measure of last resort, Denver officials explained in news reports after the Tacos Tacolorado video went viral. The department estimated that 2% of all inspections in 2025 resulted in denaturing, and shared records of three other times when inspectors used bleach.
All three involved licensed businesses. One, Denver Hot Pot & BBQ in west Denver, had served frozen oysters that were part of an outbreak in June, leading inspectors to pour bleach on the unsold boxes of product.
The other two were located blocks from each other on Morrison Road in the Westwood neighborhood. Inspectors found a man frying chicharrones in vats of hot oil outside El Viejo Alamo Bakery in June and denatured two tubs of them after they deemed he was too far from a handwashing sink, located inside the restaurant.
In February, inspectors visited Las Hijas de La Chilanga, a sit-down Mexican restaurant, after receiving a customer complaint, according to the inspection report. They checked the temperature of food stored inside a walk-in cooler — gallons of green chile, menudo, beans and birria, pounds of mozzarella cheese and sour cream, raw beef, whole fish and cooked pork. They were between 46 and 52 degrees Fahrenheit, over the 41-degree limit set by the city for cold, potentially hazardous foods.
The inspectors bleached the food inside the cooler, their report stated. The operator threw it away.
Tacos Tacolorado was a particularly bad actor, given the stand had covered a vast swath of the metro without adhering to any local health standards, said Usui, the food safety supervisor. It had an outsized persona on TikTok, where influencers raved about the food and, later, chastised inspectors for shutting the stand down and pouring bleach on tubs full of food in front of customers.
A month after the filmed snafu went viral, Usui said she hoped the incident led people to be more discerning the next time they ogle a street vendor’s offerings, especially if they exhibit the same hygiene and food-handling as Tacos Tacolorado.
“Once you get on site, there should be some pretty big red flags for you to know: Maybe I shouldn’t eat here,” she said.