150 El Paso County restaurants & food trucks long overdue on health inspections

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) - Restaurants are supposed to get inspected by the health department annually. But after some digging, KRDO13 investigates found out over 100 food establishments right here in El Paso County are long overdue, and food trucks make up the bulk of the problem.

For a special deep-dive Restaurant Roundup, we looked into how this backlog came to be and what the health department is doing to get back on track.

You might remember our Coal Mine Dragon Restaurant Roundup segment, where the spot was slammed for an all-time high of thirty violations.

When KRDO13 found out Coal Mine Dragon hadn’t been inspected in three years, it got us thinking – how many other spots are falling through the cracks?

KRDO13 requested public health department data on the matter, and the numbers were shocking.

Public records show 150 El Paso County food establishments are more than three months past due on inspection.

Most of those are food trucks, and a good chunk of them are over a year overdue.

According to the state health department (CDPHE), these numbers are technically normal.

“We should not have ten percent or more of our establishments overdue,” Sammi Jo Lawson with the El Paso County Department of Public Health explained the state guidelines in an interview.

There actually aren’t any state rules on the number of days (or months) past due that restaurants can be.

But, with some food establishments as high as 800 or 900 days overdue, Lawson admits something needs to be done.

“Even though we are meeting that current benchmark of not having 10% or more overdue, we know we can do better,” she said.

By this time next year, Lawson says the health department has a new goal to make sure no food establishment is more than three months past due on inspection.

In the meantime, with food trucks taking up a big piece of the pie, KRDO13 asked if it’s safe to eat at food trucks in El Paso County right now.

“All food trucks and all establishments do have the responsibility to follow food safety regulations at all times,” Sammi Jo Lawson replied.

KRDO had to clarify – is she telling us to trust these food trucks are following the rule?

“By all means, we also hold a responsibility to complete that annual inspection, so that is a gap that we did identify and we want to actively improve so that we don’t have that continuing," Sammi elaborated.

The question of whether it’s safe to eat at food trucks in El Paso County was never directly answered.

So – how did they get so behind in the first place?

Lawson says there were several factors, including the increase in food truck culture over the last several years, and the fact that they move around a lot and tend to operate seasonally, making it harder to hunt them down without tipping them off about an inspection.

But, she says, now they have another new plan that will get the food truck problem under control by the end of the year - by forcing them to get inspected before they’re able to renew their business license for 2026.

Denver has had this protocol in place for years, but it wasn’t implemented here until now.

Despite the backlog of overdue inspections, the El Paso County Department of Public Health says it still treats restaurants with a history of non-compliance and those it receives complaints about as a top priority.

If there’s a restaurant or food truck you got sick at or noticed unsafe food practices at, you can always file a complaint on the El Paso County Department of Public Health’s website.

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