Why Local?
The reason we make “Farm to Tortilla” decisions as a restaurant is not because it is the trendy thing to do. Sean was born & raised on a farm and cattle ranch and deeply understand the significance of local farms & ranches in a community. The closer product is harvested to where it is consumed means:
- Produce can be harvested at its peak ripeness because it doesn’t have to travel far
- Purchasing from local families keeps our micro economy healthy
- Knowing the people that grow what we serve gives us proper respect for the product
- We can all go to the farms and ranches and actually see the quality of the operations
Our Commitment
ALL of our beef, pork & chicken are from companies that hold this commitment 100%
- No Antibiotics Ever
- No Growth Hormones Ever
- Never Fed Anything that has touched any chemical (pesticides or growth hormones)
- Only Fed All Vegetarian Diet (no animal by-products like larger companies use)
- Sustainably Raised, Cage Free & AWA Certified
Our Beef
We are now getting 100% of our beef from Clint Buckner’s beautiful ranch on 75th & Nelson; they are true free range 100% of their life and 100% grass-fed 100% of their life. Clint grows 100% of what he feeds all of his animals! (we are having our Summer staff party on this ranch in June). Our butcher is in Ft. Collins and he will hang our beef to dry age it for 3 weeks before fabricating it and sending it to us. This 3 week dry age both intensifies the beef flavor and tenderizes the meat as it begins to break down.
Our Pork
Clint also raises Berkshire Hogs, a highly prized heritage breed known for its rich flavor and dark, naturally pink meat. This is the pork we use for our Carnitas and Al Pastor!
Our Chicken
We have gone back to Red Bird Farms Chicken. This is a great Colorado company that started in 1940 and has kept the same commitment listed above for 80 years. It takes Red Bird three times longer to raise a chicken than Foster Farms and its worth it!
Our Produce
A lot of our produce comes from Colorado in the Summer & Fall months but its just not possible in the Winter, however there are some products we get locally year round such as lettuce & cilantro.
Our Dairy
Our dairy is all actually from Meadow Gold in Texas but it’s really high quality stuff.
Our Kombucha
What is Kombucha?
A beverage made by fermenting sweet tea with a culture of yeast & bacteria. Kombucha is known as the “Immortal Health Elixir” by the Chinese since around 2,000 years ago.
Why drink Kombucha?
The fermentation process creates amazing probiotics, enzymes, acids & b- vitamins that are great for: -digestion -immune support -weight loss -reduced joint pain -energy -cancer prevention -detoxification.
Who Makes ours?
Cassie & Tanner Gifford live in Mead and are about to launch this new Kombucha Brewery called Knuckle Puck (named after the famous hockey shot in the movie The Mighty Ducks (Tanner is a hockey player); they brew here in Longmont.
Our Oil
The oil we use in our fryers 100% rapeseed oil (non-hydrogenated, nut free, soy free). The rape seed grows abundantly in Canada and is pressed into a healthful vegetable oil. We keep one of our fryers 100% gluten free and there is never any cross- contamination through cleaning or any other of our processes.
86 Single Use Plastic at Jefes!
We’re striving toward improving our restaurants and addressing this increasingly devastating world issue by removing as much single-use plastic as possible. We invite you to help us continue finding solutions that we may have missed or have not yet figured out; and we challenge you to find ways to remove & replace single use plastic in your own ways.
In all of our restaurants, we’ve replaced the following items with compostable options, which are available on request:
- Plastic straws
- Kids’ cups, lids, and straws
- To-go cutlery
As for those necessary items… We’ve replaced plastic to-go bags with paper and our trash can liners with compostable ones, both of which break down in less than a month. We’ve also eliminated much of our need for plastic wrap by switching to reusable lids for our kitchen containers.
Yes — single-use plastic is FAR less expensive than the replacements we’ve brought in. So, we respectfully ask that you help us as much as possible in supporting our vision by simply requesting any straws or disposable cups and utensils you might need. It’s a great priority to us to be responsible with what we’ve been entrusted while we make our laps around the sun; in that time, we can either do a whole lot of damage or try to do a bit of good…Let’s shoot for the latter!
