A BBQ-Joint Owner Stole From His Employees. Then They Took Over.

Digital subscribers can listen to this article. Subscribe today for unlimited access to Texas Monthly. Already a subscriber? Log in. Last February, the employees of AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q, in Denver, reached their breaking point. According to longtime pitmaster and former general manager Patrick Klaiber, they had seen the red flags from their absentee owner, Jared Leonard. He and his wife, Amanda, had spent months in Mexico opening a location of AJ’s in Punta Mita, and he was paying employees through various payment apps instead of with actual paychecks. Then Klaiber received a concerning letter from the IRS. “I found out he was stealing Social Security and retirement benefits out of our checks and stealing our taxes and not paying them to the government,” he said. Klaiber…

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