Every Friday and Saturday, people strolling Larimer Street in the RiNo Arts District can often spot a curious sight: a line of people standing outside a Denver factory, waiting for it to open.
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Unlike most RiNo lines, they’re not waiting to get into a club, grab a prime spot at a show or for a budtender to buzz them into a dispensary.
They’re waiting for tortillas.
“My brother-in-law got us a couple, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them,” said Wash Park resident Paola Duran, who made the trip to RiNo just as the factory opened one day in June. “I was like, it’s Saturday. They’re only open two days; I need to get down there.”
Why all the buzz — and effort — to buy tortillas and tortilla chips from a factory that only opens to the public for 12 hours a week? Because Raquelitas Tortillas does not make ordinary tortillas.
“These are artisanal, which I really like,” Duran said. “I think there’s something so special when people take their experience with Mexican food and make something special.”
And by all accounts, Raquelitas does make something pretty special — and uniquely Colorado.
The yellow corn tortillas are made from nixtamalized heirloom corn, grown by the Ute Mountain Ute tribe on a reservation near the Four Corners, that’s ground on Mexican lava stone. The Sonoran-style brisket tallow flour tortillas feature Riot BBQ‘s rendered brisket fat, and the Nachos Borrachos corn tortilla chips are made using spent grain from Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs.
Even the Green Chile Chips with Devil Dust — a bold, addictive tortilla chip and Raquelitas’ best-seller — are made with Pueblo green chiles, fried in Colorado Mills High Oleic Sunflower Oil grown and processed in Southeast Colorado and dusted with spicy jalapeno ranch seasoning.
“Basically everything in the bag is from Colorado,” said Raquelitas’ resident Tortilla Savant Richard Schneider (yes, that’s his actual title). “Trust me, none of these ingredients are the cheapest. It’s quite the opposite.”
Schneider’s father, Sal De La Torre, started Raquelitas in 1960 as a small bakery on Larimer Street in downtown Denver, and the family opened the RiNo factory in 1974. In the decades since, it’s grown into a massive — but still family-owned — operation churning out more than 170,000 tortillas per day that are served in more than 1,800 bars, restaurants, stores and even sports stadiums across Colorado, according to the company.
But even though you’ve likely encountered its tortillas at grocers like Marczyk Fine Foods or restaurants such as El Five, Odie B’s, Elway’s or Denver Central Market, Raquelitas has always sold wholesale and never directly to consumers — until 2024, when chief marketing officer Ben Williamson, Schneider’s nephew and De La Torre’s grandson, talked the family into letting him open a small retail operation at the factory. But it took some convincing, Williamson said.
“They wanted nothing to do with retail — absolutely nothing,” Williamson said. “‘Why would we mess with bags when we’re selling pallets?’”
But Williamson was determined, especially after people frequently stopped by the factory — in what is now a pedestrian-heavy area populated by bars, venues, retail and some of Denver’s most lauded restaurants — seeking to buy a bag.
So the East High School grad and Regis University alumnus turned a small hallway at the front of the factory into a tiny store and tasting room that opened on June 8, 2024, operating just six hours per day on Friday and Saturday to avoid mixing foot traffic with the massive trucks coming and going from the factory.
“Before I even opened the door, there were people waiting,” Williamson said, and long lines have been a regular occurrence ever since — especially because of the tasting room, where visitors can sample chips and tortillas as he shares recommendations, recipes and waxes poetic about every Colorado ingredient.
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In the two years since the retail operation began, Williamson said they frequently sell out, especially in limited-production flavors like the cult-favorite cinnamon roll (back at Raquelitas this month) and a queso blanco flour tortilla that sold out in under an hour twice, drawing long lines.
Despite limited advertising or marketing beyond social media, this little factory hallway has become a destination not just for tourists who happen to wander by but also for in-the-know food enthusiasts who crave hyperlocal, uniquely Colorado ingredients.
“It is sort of a special destination, and that was really the point,” Williamson said. “It’s definitely bigger than I thought it would have been.”
As an avid home cook himself, Williamson loves it when customers ask what to make with that week’s specials, lighting up as he shares his favorite tortillas for breakfast tacos or the best chips for dipping into guacamole. He recognizes almost every repeat customer who walks in the door, and since he’s only missed a single weekend since 2024 — to watch his beloved Denver Nuggets play in Dallas — he’s become almost as well known as the tortillas.
“He literally grew up in this building — his dad would bring him in here when he could hold him on one arm,” Schneider said. “We needed a passionate ambassador to tell our story. It’s one thing to have a great story; you’ve gotta have a great storyteller, too. It’s unquestionable that Ben is checking off all the boxes on all that.”
For Williamson, being the affable face of the retail program is “just fundamental hospitality — make people feel good,” he said.
And it’s working, the family says, largely because Williamson has curated an experience that Schneider describes more like a wine tasting than a Mexican bakery.
“I think the way we’re doing it, the way Ben is telling the story, that’s what’s making people enjoy it so much,” Schneider said. “I think the general population really wants to know what’s in their food.”
And the general population seems to want Raquelitas’ tortillas, too, especially since Williamson is constantly unveiling limited-release flavors like black habanero, champagne honey mustard, Mexican hot chocolate or toasted sesame miso.
“It is probably one of the most Denver things I can think of — just on a random street in a random little hallway, you can get the best tortillas in town,” Williamson said.
Outside of new flavor combos and chef collaborations, don’t expect this retail store and tasting experience to expand much beyond its current hours of 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, at least right now. The family says the factory’s logistics, along with the exclusivity of the limited experience, make them want to keep things intimate. And always oh-so Colorado.
“We’re not the biggest tortilla factory in the state, and I make no apologies for that,” Schneider said. “But as far as being local, helping the farmers and supporting Colorado agriculture, nobody touches us.”
Raquelitas Tortillas, 3111 Larimer St., raquelitas.com. Retail store open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (or until sell-out) every Friday and Saturday.
