The State Padlocked Piglatin on the Exact Day Guy Fieri Aired It Again

Picture the morning. Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. Piglatin Cocina, 2825 Dublin Blvd. on the north side of Colorado Springs, and there are notices taped to the front doors. Not a menu change. Not a we are closed for a private event sign. The Colorado Department of Revenue had seized the place for nonpayment of taxes.

Here is the part that stings. That same day, a new episode of Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: Triple D Nation" was set to air featuring Piglatin. The "Fried, Spiced and Iced" episode. The restaurant had announced it a little over a week earlier. National TV comeback and a state padlock, same calendar square.

One of the posted notices put the number at $47,500.58 in back taxes.

How a food truck became a Triple D regular

So let me back up, because this is not some fly by night operation. Andres Velez started Piglatin as a food truck in 2013. And it worked. Guy Fieri found it back then too. Season 23, Episode 11, aired Nov. 6, 2015, an episode called "Piggin Out," while Piglatin was still a truck.

The dish that got him there is the Piglatin Plate. Mojo pork, rice, black beans, island sauce, and maduros, which are caramelized fried plantains. That plate is the whole origin story on a plate, if you ask me.

By late January 2018 the truck had grown into the brick-and-mortar spot on Dublin Boulevard. That is twelve years of building something, from a window on wheels to a sit-down restaurant that Food Network wanted back a second time.

Velez himself is worth knowing. His parents emigrated from Colombia to Union City, New Jersey. He served six years as an Army cook, two tours in Iraq, then went to culinary school. He runs the business with his wife, Tricia Velez, who was born and raised in Colorado Springs and has Asian and Polynesian cultural backgrounds. This is a family operation with real roots on the Front Range.

What actually happened with the taxes

Velez told Side Dish with Schniper the straight version. He was on a tax payment plan with the state. He fell behind. And falling behind on a state plan does not just mean a late fee. It triggered a demand for payment in full, the whole balance at once, which he could not immediately cover. That is how you go from behind on a plan to padlocked doors in what feels like one move.

What he said next tells you what kind of operator he is. His priority now is "doing right by the staff with whatever we have left." He is also looking at selling Piglatin fare out of an express location inside the COATI food hall downtown.

And he is not out of the game entirely. Velez also runs Anju Korean Eats inside COATI. Piglatin and COATI are both part of the Atlas Restaurant Group.

Now, here is a thread worth pulling. A legal record search turned up multiple El Paso County court cases filed against Atlas Restaurant Group, its affiliated concept Ola Juice Bar, and CEO Aaron Ewton. So the tax notice on Piglatin's door is not happening in a vacuum. There is more pressure in that corner of the business than one storefront.

The bigger number nobody wants to say out loud

This is the part people miss. Piglatin is not an isolated bad story. It is the latest one in a run.

Base Camp Restaurant in Old Colorado City closed Oct. 4. Rock City Cafe closed Sept. 11. And now Piglatin on Oct. 30. Three in under two months in one metro.

The Colorado Restaurant Association has been saying it plainly. Margins are tighter than ever. And honestly, when you watch this stuff the way we do, you start to see the pattern before the notices go up. Food costs, labor, rent, insurance, all of it climbing while the price people will pay for a plate of mojo pork has a ceiling. A business can look full on a Friday night and still be underwater by the time the tax plan payment hits.

That is the real estate angle here too, and I am not forcing it. A brick-and-mortar restaurant lease is a fixed, heavy, every-single-month commitment. A food truck is not. Velez spent 2013 to 2018 on wheels and thrived. The move to a permanent address is the dream for most operators, but it is also the part that turns a soft month into a crisis. When you lock yourself to a building, you lock yourself to that building's cost no matter what the dining room does.

I do not want this to read like a eulogy, because Velez is still talking about an express counter at COATI and about taking care of his people. That is not a man who is done.

But look at what we are actually watching across the Front Range right now. Restaurants that are good enough for Guy Fieri to feature twice are still getting their doors sealed by the Department of Revenue. If that does not tell you how thin this business has gotten, nothing will.

I will be watching the COATI move. If Piglatin comes back through that food hall window, that is a story I want to tell.