The Gazette reported that Bryan Crites of Crites Produce near Avondale said, "I just left a lot of ground empty, basically." Crites described a summer in which he planted roughly 40 percent of his fields and spent the growing season adjusting irrigation by hand to stretch what water he had.
Crites is one of several eastern Pueblo County growers who came into this year's chile harvest short on water. Colorado's hottest summer on record combined with a winter that failed to deliver its usual snowmelt into the Arkansas River, and that meant less water for the farms along the St. Charles Mesa that grow the crop the city is named for, in a manner of speaking. Gary DiTomaso, whose family has farmed the Mesa since around 1904, left half his own ground fallow this season and concentrated his water on a 10-acre patch of Pueblo chile. His daughter Kasey, who manages the farm, said rising fuel, fertilizer, and labor costs made the year harder still, so the farm culled its lower-priority crops and stuck to corn and chile. The Gazette quoted Carla Houghton of Mauro Farms and Bakery saying, "It's going to hurt us, not the consumer." Houghton said yields are down across the board, but what reaches the market looks and tastes the same as any other year.
The festival filled Union Avenue that weekend.
The Pueblo Chile & Frijoles Festival ran its 32nd year Friday through Sunday, and by the numbers it has never been bigger. Greater Pueblo Chamber Vice President Donielle Kitzman put the growth in perspective: the festival started in 1994 with a single block, and now covers ten, with more than 200 vendors, four entertainment stages, and over 50 musical acts across the weekend.
This Year's Festival Program
Two new additions this year made that scale even more visible. Kitzman said the festival brought back the Hot to Trot race, with 5K and 10K options, and added a new gravel bike ride that routes cyclists out to working farm stands rather than keeping them downtown the whole weekend. Together, they expanded the festival's program this year.
The weekend's logistics reflect that same scale:
- Nine entrance gates ring Union Avenue, with the street closed to vehicle traffic inside the festival footprint
- Hours ran Friday 3 p.m. to midnight, Saturday 10 a.m. to midnight, and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Gate admission was $8, with children under 12 free
- A free shuttle ran between the Midtown Shopping Center lot on Sixth Street and the festival grounds
The Chihuahua & Friends Parade stepped off Sunday morning at the El Pueblo History Museum stage, and the Jalapeño Eating Contest drew its usual crowd Sunday afternoon at the Mission Foods tent near Alan Hamel Avenue. Balloon Fest sent 25 hot-air balloons up from the Langoni Soccer Fields at 24th and High each morning, with balloon glows near the Riverwalk Friday and Saturday night.
There is a small irony sitting underneath all of this, too. The New Mexico Chile Association has estimated a statewide supply shortfall of 20 to 50 percent this year due to what growers there are calling prolonged adverse conditions. A rough year for Pueblo's chile counterparts to the south means Pueblo chile is likely to hold its shelf space and its reputation a little more firmly than usual, even in a year when local farmers are working harder for less. If you want to know you are holding the real thing, DiTomaso offered a simple test: Pueblo's Mirasol-type chile grows upright with a straight stem, while a hanging pepper with a curved stem is something else, probably an Anaheim. The name Mirasol means "looking at the sun," which is a fitting description for a pepper that grows pointed straight up at it.
Downtown Pueblo's New Places and Events
Downtown Pueblo has seen new development in recent years. The Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo, a 32-acre stretch that returned the Arkansas River to its historic downtown channel after it was diverted following a 1920s flood, opened its new Boathouse on April 23. The two-story building at 130 Riverwalk Place handles excursion boat ticketing and storage on the ground floor, houses the HARP Authority's offices and waterview conference rooms upstairs, and tops it off with a rooftop deck that seats 125 for weddings and community events. It is part of the HARP 1A Expansion Project and adds a year-round civic space downtown.
A few blocks over, the same logic applies to Fuel & Iron. The food hall occupies the historic Holmes Hardware Building, built in 1911 and vacant for decades before a multimillion-dollar renovation brought it back in 2023. It was designed from the start as a restaurant incubator: chefs get lower overhead and a built-in customer base while they build a track record, then graduate to their own storefronts. This year's Restaurant Month lineup shows the model still turning over new names, with Bollywood Bites, Custom Cravings Cafe, The Black Swan, The Comfort Grill, and The Hungry Buffalo all operating out of the same Union Avenue address. Twenty-eight apartments sit on the floors above the kitchens, which means the building is generating foot traffic on weeknights, not just festival weekends.
The newest name on Pueblo's dining map sits a bit further out on Highway 50. A'Tavola Italian Cuisine opened at 1110 US-50 W at the start of the year. Co-owner Marisa Lopez grew up in Pueblo. The restaurant joined this year's Restaurant Month roster within weeks of opening, which tells you something about how quickly a new spot can plug into Pueblo's existing food culture rather than having to build an audience from scratch.
Local Growers and Downtown Pueblo This Year
Pueblo growers faced a difficult season, with less water, higher input costs, and acreage left empty. Meanwhile, the festival spanned ten blocks, the Riverwalk's Boathouse opened, and the local restaurant lineup added new names.
That continued activity is not a small thing for anyone who spends a Friday night at Fuel & Iron, a Saturday morning on the Riverwalk, or a Sunday afternoon in line for a chile relleno on Union Avenue.
If you're weighing a move within Pueblo, thinking about what a property near Union Avenue or the Riverwalk is really worth to live near, or just curious what a home search looks like in a city with this much going on downtown, Shelley Welliver grew up in Pueblo and works this market alongside Denver metro and Colorado Springs. Schedule a free consultation to talk through what you're seeing on the ground.
