In a dirt parking lot off Sheridan Boulevard, bundles of chiles hang from a roadside tent stand like spires adorning a capsaicin castle.
Ron Morales’s chile stand kingdom wasn’t built overnight. His family-run business, Morales Family Chile Store at 52nd Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Arvada, has been roasting and selling bushels of chiles for more than 30 years.
The humble green chile is a Colorado cuisine staple. Whether stewed in pork, blended into salsa, drenched over burritos or piled atop hot dogs, hamburgers or whatever you’ve got on the menu, green chile is a reliable addition to add oomph to your dish.
Roadside stands selling bundles of the hot, roasted produce pop up throughout the Denver metro and beyond come summer and linger into fall, beckoning passersby to partake in their fiery, flavorful goods.
“Green chile is a poor man’s food,” said Morales, who fondly remembers the scent of roasting chiles leading him home from the school bus stop as a kid. “It’s made with love in the heart.”
Morales grew up with a belly full of green chile, but he learned the business of it from his father.
To appease the long-standing rivalry between New Mexico and Colorado, Morales trucks in chiles from both Hatch, N.M., and Pueblo, and classifies different varieties into varying degrees of heat. He keeps two refrigerated semi-trailers on the property to keep the chiles fresh for longer, and with help from his nephews, Morales keeps his stand stocked. When a customer comes through, the bushels, staked in plastic laundry baskets, are roasted on the spot for all to see — and smell.
The Morales operation started out with one roaster that a worker would hand-crank, but over the decades, he’s leveled up. Now, there are four roasters charring the chiles with a motorized crank so multiple loads can be handled at once. When that’s done, Morales bags the bushels to let them finish cooking, and the customer is instructed to peel the char off and freeze them for future use.
“It’s all about real customer service and good, quality chiles,” Morales said. “That’s how we’ve stuck around this long.”
Annette Hokanson pulled up to the Morales stand on their first day of the season in mid-August in search of peppers that would send the smoke shooting from her ears.
“You can hardly find any hot chiles anymore,” Hokanson said.
Morales obliged, selecting a variety he said was sure to set her taste buds ablaze. He gave Hokanson a sample.
After a red-faced cough, Hokanson broke out into a smile.
“It’s hot,” she said, offering a nod of approval. She went home with a roasted bushel.
Denver’s Northside and Westside are, historically, home to a high percentage of the city’s Latino population, said Councilwoman Jamie Torres whose district covers west Denver neighborhoods like Barnum, LaAlma/Lincoln Park, MarLee, Sun Valley, Villa Park, Valverde and Westwood. The roadside stands that pop up during harvest time along Federal Boulevard, Alameda Avenue and other streets, are as much a cultural experience as they are culinary, serving their community the foods that have been cherished and passed on from generation to generation.
“This is where the population is who wants green chile,” Torres said. “It becomes its own season, just like peach season.”
Going in on a big bag of roasted chiles with family — peeling them, bagging them, freezing them together — conjures a sweet nostalgia for Torres.
“There’s a whole tradition around it,” Torres said.
Renee Abeyta wasn’t about to let the tradition wither. She has been running the stand at 1600 Federal Boulevard for the past six years, taking it over from a friend who died.
Abeyta, 70, swears she puts green chile on everything she eats. She puts the roasted chiles in the blender with garlic and tomatoes and cans it, and the mixture goes on her eggs, spaghetti, Ramen noodles — everything.
“I even put it in my sandwiches,” Abeyta said. “I’ll make a sandwich and spread it on like butter.”
Abeyta delights in converting green chile newbies into fanatics.
“If they’ve never had it before and they try it for the first time, they’re going to come back every year,” Abeyta said. “It’s addicting. The flavor is unreal.”
Abeyta is retired, but during chile season, you can find her seated out at the stand roasting in the Denver heat along with her chiles. The work can be hard, she said, but talking to customers who come back year after year while engulfed by the aroma of blackening chiles makes it worth it.
She already has a successor picked out — her grandson — to take her place when her time peddling peppers is up.
“It’s a family business,” Abeyta said.
Abeyta’s stand is loyal to the Hatch chile, and she prides herself on the way the chiles are roasted.
“We roast it slow,” Abeyta said. “When you roast it slow and if the chile is really fresh…the peel just comes right off. It’s oh so good.”
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