Boebert owns Shooter’s Grill, a restaurant in Rifle, Colorado.
“Former Shooters employees tell me that, in the early years of Boebert’s fame, people visited the restaurant from across the country, and that the dining room was often packed with tourists on summer days,” Weinberg reports. “But they also say that the reality of working at Shooters was far removed from the lighthearted atmosphere shown on TV. In fact, five former Shooters employees tell me that Boebert frequently failed to pay her employees on time. Two of the former workers wished to remain anonymous because they feared retaliation; another did not want to be named and publicly associated with Boebert.”
A big part of Boebert’s hyper-MAGA narrative is that she had a tough working-class upbringing and that Democratic policies did nothing to help someone like her. But according to Weinberg’s sources, the Shooters owner has a history of not treating her employees well.
A former Shooters waitress told Weinberg, “The second the restaurant blew up, her head blew up — and it became something entirely different. And I got to meet a new version of her that is a monster.”
Weinberg reports, “Multiple employees say that they were paid in cash, either out of the register or from Boebert’s husband’s wallet, without any taxes deducted. While many workers were struggling to make ends meet, they say Boebert spent exorbitant sums on breast implants, private schooling for her sons, and a new Cadillac Escalade. They describe her as alternately absent, showing up only when news crews were at the restaurant, or demanding.”
Another former Shooters employee told Weinberg, “If she would come into the restaurant, everyone just knew we were just gonna have a bad day, because she would just walk around and nitpick.”
Josh Boyington, who worked as a cook at Shooters before leaving in 2017, alleges that Shooters was losing money in the late 2010s. Boyington told Weinberg, “Shooters don’t make no money. I left because I don’t even think we were topping $500 a day.”
Weinberg managed to get Boebert on the phone. But when the far-right MAGA congresswoman found out that Weinberg writes for Mother Jones, she hung up on her.
But Boyington was glad to talk to Weinberg, saying that while he agrees with many of Boebert’s right-wing views, he has issues with her as a person.
Boyington told Weinberg, “She’s an easy person to love if you don’t know her. It’s just, once you get to know her, you just don’t love her.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
Related Articles Around the Web
