Beau Jo's backtracks on employee ownership plan, saying it was 'not a great long-term fit'

IDAHO SPRINGS, Colo. — In 2023, the popular pizza joint Beau Jo's announced it would be transitioning to employee ownership, coinciding with the restaurant's 50th anniversary. Now, management said they are no longer pursuing that plan after determining it was not the best fit for the company.

A handful of employees who were disappointed by the change of tune reached out to Denver7, claiming they felt blindsided and were excited to be part of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP).

"That was going to mean that they would get some stock in the company towards their retirement, and so when they left, they would be able to cash that out and have some money for their retirement program," said Codi Bair, president of Beau Jo's. "It was not a great long-term fit for our company and for a lot of our employees."

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According to a message shared with Beau Jo's staff, the ESOP was expected to be finalized within a few months of the April 2023 announcement. The correspondence said that after developing several different types of deals to make the ESOP work, "it just didn't make sense, and there would be better ways to reward more of the employees."

The explanation said the ESOP benefited long-term employees, but had "very little benefit" for seasonal employees.

"We have a lot of employees that are high schoolers, that are, you know, seasonal staff and employees, and they wouldn't get very much benefit from the ESOP because you have to be an employee for a certain amount of time to be vested into the program," Bair said. "It was just not a great situation for everybody involved."

The notice sent to employees continued to say an ESOP would have changed how the business was run, reporting to a board of trustees focused more on finances than the way the family-run company had operated.

"It was going to make us kind of change the way that we ran our company, turning it more into a corporation rather than a family-owned business," said Bair.

In addition, the message said the ESOP would have put Beau Jo's into "large debt, since the company would have to be buying the stock, which would leave tighter margins and extremely small room for error."

"We spent over half a million dollars put into this, hundreds and hundreds of labor hours, phone calls, conversations," Bair said. "In no way, shape, or form was this ever supposed to be sort of trickery."

Denver7 asked Bair when Beau Jo's made the decision not to pursue the ESOP. Bair estimated that the message was communicated to managers in the fall of 2024, who were supposed to "trickle it down however they see fit." Still, Denver7 received emails from employees who were shocked when they learned of the change in 2025.

"There probably should have been a better way to communicate to the employees, but we also didn't have a lot of employees asking either about it, so it was not at the forefront of our minds," said Bair.

Until recently, Patrick Haas worked as an assistant manager at Beau Jo's in Idaho Springs.

"I was super excited when I first went to the company," Haas said. "My plan was to turn that into my career, to build with the company, to grow with the company."

Haas left the company after moving to Denver, saying the commute became too much of a burden. Still, after spending roughly three years at Beau Jo's, Haas said several of his colleagues were excited about the ESOP.

"I know a lot of people that have been there for decades, and to them, obviously, with the more time you put in, the more stock you get — that could have changed their lives," Haas said. "For them to be waiting for two years and just to hear all of a sudden, never mind, basically, is very upsetting to a lot of people."

According to Haas, the ESOP could have changed the way staff worked at the restaurant.

"Some people do enough just to get paid, but if you know that your name is a part of it, everybody tends to take a lot more pride," said Haas. "It would have given me and every other employee that much more incentive to care."

When Denver7 asked Bair what the new plans are, she said the company is not ready to reveal those details at this time.

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