"Casa Bonita! Casa Bonita! Food and fun in a festive atmosphere." Well, before the pandemic maybe.
The beloved Colorado restaurant that was famously featured in the show South Park has fallen on some rough times recently after being shuttered for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Summit Family Restaurants, the company that currently owns Casa Bonita, recently filed for Chapter 11 protection in Arizona on April 6. And although court proceedings are ongoing, it appears that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone want to purchase the iconic eatery.
"We want to buy Casa Bonita and treat it right. I feel like it was neglected even before the pandemic,” Parker told The Hollywood Report. Although the ongoing legal issues are preventing Parker and Stone from finalizing the sale, the duo are committed to doing everything they can to purchae and revitalize the restaurant to make it as amazing as they once remember (and as it was once depicted on the show).
“We are absolutely trying to buy it,” Parker said. “We are going to do everything we can. We want to make it right and make it amazing.”
Casa Bonita is a Mexican-themed restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, famous for its 30-foot waterfall with cliff divers, small puppet theater, Black Bart's Cave (a "haunted tunnel"), magic theater, and delicious Mexican cuisine. The restaurant was famously the focus of the classic 2003 episode in which Cartman tricks Butters into going into hiding in order to gain an invitation to Kyle's birthday party — which is being held at Casa Bonita. Cartman's plan is eventually foiled, but he does still get to experience all the amazingnes Casa Bonita has to offer, even if only for a couple of seconds.
Should Parker and Stone manage to gain ownership of the restaurant, they've got big plans to revitalize it. “We started talking about the changes we’re going to make — mostly with the food,” Parker said. “We’re going to make really awesome food. I was already thinking about how I was going to make Black Bart’s Cave a little bigger.”
Casa Bonita is a beloved childhood location for the duo, and buying it would be "the crowning achievement" for Parker.
“It’s just sitting there. It sucks,” he said. “For a moment when it was like, ‘Casa Bonita is going to close down,’ we said, ‘We’re going to go buy it.’ And I felt like it was the crowning achievement of my life.”