“The first thing out of my mouth was ‘triumph,’” raved Scott Gairdner, host of Podcast: The Ride, following his first visit to Casa Bonita, the famed Denver-area Mexican restaurant/family-entertainment paradise best known as the subject of a classic South Park episode.
“This is a triumph,” Gairdner continued, “and how great does it feel to see a new triumph in themed entertainment in 2024.”
That’s high praise from someone who’s spent years overthinking theme parks and related experiences, right down to the parking garages.
And you know what? He’s right: The recently reopened Casa Bonita is an 1870s-Oaxaca-by-way-of-1970s-suburbia American fiesta that’s absolutely worth traveling from out of state to see, with or without kids in tow.
Here’s what we loved and what you should know before making reservations.
(Musicians at Casa Bonita restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado | Credit: Dan Jakes)
What is Casa Bonita?
The self-proclaimed “Greatest Restaurant in the World,” Casa Bonita is the sole surviving 52,000-square-foot location of a chain of heavily themed family restaurants opened by Bill Waugh in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. At one time, there were Casa Bonita outposts in Oklahoma (where the brand originated), Texas, and elsewhere. But only the restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado (just west of Denver), remains.
The place features an indoor waterfall, cliff divers, live musicians, a gently spooky haunted walkthrough, gift shops, a puppet show, magicians, and costumed characters, all within a labyrinthine space designed to look like a small town in Latin America.
Current co-owner Trey Parker of South Park fame has described Casa Bonita as a “Mexican village at night, lost in time to the ‘70s. It was this magical town that you, as a kid, could explore and see what was in it.”
What is Casa Bonita's South Park connection?
If folks outside the mountain states have heard of Casa Bonita, it’s likely thanks to an often re-aired 2003 South Park episode in which Cartman conspires to weasel his way into an invite to Stan’s birthday dinner at “the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants.” The plan unravels at the last minute, but, determined to get the full Casa Bonita experience, Cartman speed-runs through all of the restaurant’s activities while evading the police to the accompaniment of mariachi music.
Ever since growing up in Colorado, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have held Casa Bonita in a special place in their hearts—so much so that it’s the namesake of the animators’ offices. Back in 2012, Parker and Stone celebrated the opening of their Broadway show, The Book of Mormon, by taking the cast to the restaurant and half-jokingly musing about buying it.
Nearly a decade later, the half-joke became a serious reality when the creative duo rescued the business from bankruptcy with an initial $6.5 million buyout in 2022. They later financed a restoration to the tune of more than $40 million.
(Statue of South Park's Cartman at Casa Bonita restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado | Credit: Dan Jakes)
Today, South Park is represented at the site with a photo-opp statue of Cartman, a costumed ManBearPig (sporting custom ‘70s orange diving shorts), and the voices of Parker and Stone in announcements and animatronics.
That said, Casa Bonita is not a South Park restaurant. In the redesign, Parker and Stone preserved and built upon the restaurant’s history and established mythology instead.
(Memorabilia display at Casa Bonita restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado | Credit: Dan Jakes)
Casa Bonita's decline and fall—and movie-worthy comeback
The Covid-19 pandemic dealt the fatal blow to the original Casa Bonita in 2021, but the downfall was a long time coming due to decades of deferred maintenance and mismanagement. Waugh sold the business in 1982, after which it passed through a series of decidedly hands-off owners.
A placard in the restaurant’s mini museum brands the 2000–2020 era as “Chapter III: Famous to Flavorless.” Amid a fall-off in food quality—with the restaurant “earning the nickname ‘Casa No-Eata,’” according to the museum text—the building grew dilapidated and dangerous for workers. Before the reopening, for example, the cliff divers were expected to swim through a 3-foot underwater trapdoor tube before emerging into a shower room full of high-voltage panels.
(Cliff divers at Casa Bonita restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado | Credit: Steve Boice / Shutterstock)
For locals, Casa Bonita survived as a kitschy throwback, limping through the years from tacky-in-a-fun-way to tacky-in-a-sad-way before ultimately arriving at tacky-in-a-way-that-could-literally-kill-somebody.
In an interview with the Denver Post, Parker described the renovation process as an especially dire episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
But 2 years and an unfathomable amount of money spent after the closing in 2021, Parker and Stone reopened the restaurant, having made good on the edict to change nothing and improve everything. The process is documented in Arthur Bradford’s highly entertaining 2024 film, ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!
We highly recommend planning a pilgrimage to Casa Bonita. The following tips will make your visit especially memorable.
Reservations are a must, and lunch is easier to book than dinner.
During the preview period of the relaunch, securing a table at Casa Bonita felt a little like trying to land tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. At one point, the waiting list was at least 600,000 people long, and even those lucky enough to score a table were given a limited time window for selection.
Thankfully, that period has now passed, but prime time evening reservations are still limited—though not impossible to come by. For dinner, you’ll want to bookmark the Casa Bonita reservations page and continually check back on desired times to see if something opens up. New dates are regularly dropped, usually a few months out at a time.
Or plan to go at lunch and you can generally have your pick of time slots. Part of the appeal of Casa Bonita, after all, is that the interior always looks like nighttime. The clock may say 1:30pm, but it’ll feel like 8, with the same food, shows, and experiences—and slightly lower prices (by $5–$10) to boot.
Show up early and expect a wait outside.
Arriving guests first go through a security check, and during busy time slots there’s always at least a bit of a queue to get in. You are absolutely not allowed to vape inside the restaurant, but upon entering, we were asked to put our “keys, phone, and vape pens” in a basket, so it doesn’t seem like those items get confiscated, at least not every time. Weapons, on the other hand, will of course get you denied entry.
Based on our experience, we recommend arriving a half-hour before your designated dining time. Your grace period extends only about 15 minutes beyond your reservation slot, so it’s not wise to stroll up at your exact check-in time, especially if you’re parking instead of using a rideshare.
Remember: It’s for the kids.
A great, silent bit of documentary cringe comedy in ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! is seeing Parker visibly revolted by a drunk adult running around doing a halfhearted Cartman voice during a preview of the restaurant. While the sheer scale of the place and its cornucopia of offerings will impress kids as well as adults, it’s the former who are the VIPs here. This is fundamentally a place for families. So keep it PG and try to give priority to the kiddos when lining up for attractions.
The add-ons are nice, but you can have plenty of fun without them.
Yes, there are plenty of enticements for upselling, and many are worth the extra charge, from the tasty vanilla flan to the remarkably creative shooting gallery in the arcade. But unlike a lot of family entertainment options these days where the bottom line gets bloated in piecemeal increments way beyond the advertised rate (looking at you, theme parks and cruise ships), Casa Bonita gives guests a great time even at the base rate.
Prices for kids ages 3-12 are $19.99 for lunch, $24.99 on evenings and weekends. Guests ages 13 and older are charged $29.99 for weekday lunch, $39.99 for evenings and weekends. Those fees (which include a 15% service surcharge; extra tipping is optional) are paid tableside after you’ve eaten and include chips and salsa, a soft drink, an entree, a basket of heavenly sopaipillas, and access to the shows.
And here’s the fun stuff you can add on.
If you do want to go all out, available extras on the menu include $13 draft cocktails and frozen drinks, and $8 desserts like spiced chocolate budino and lime custard carlata. Photo booth pictures and arcade games, including the shooting gallery, cost extra, as do some of the interactive animatronic features.
Of the latter, we especially enjoyed the Zoltar-style gold prospector fortuneteller, who wears a Farrah Fawcett T-shirt and warns users about the explosive dangers of the Ford Pinto before dropping a heavy, Casa Bonita–themed coin for $5. If you want to see what a machine or animatronic does without paying, just wait around a few minutes for someone else to tap their card and watch from the side.
Even if you’re not typically a souvenir person, the gift shop is worth checking out, as a lot of the merchandise—like the table flags, puzzles, and posters—is original, well-designed, and of high quality.
(Attractions at Casa Bonita restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado | Credit: Dan Jakes)
The puppet and magic shows are better than you’d think.
Even knowing the owners have Tony Awards, we were astonished by the caliber of performance, creativity, and stagecraft put into the revamped puppet and magic shows.
We don’t want to spoil too much of either, but both performances honor Casa Bonita’s history and ‘70s culture in really entertaining ways. The puppet show stars various Mexican entrees, including one of the gross pre-renovation Casa Bonita plates, and is formatted like a variety show along the lines of Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree, with original songs and surprise elements like talking rocks and trees on the sidelines.
The puppet show is particularly amenable to young kids, as it’s staged in front of a slab of bench seats in a pretty high-traffic area so that parents can easily leave with tykes who aren’t feeling it. Staff members enforce a no-recording policy, which means everyone gets a view unobstructed by screens.
The Sorsoro magic show takes place in a more traditional, gorgeous little theater, and is better suited for older kids who can sit still for a short duration and aren’t afraid of temporarily dimmed lights. Alongside an old-timey TV, a silent, masked comedian/magician performs a handful of illusions, backed by a soundtrack that nods to ‘70s TV magic specials. Clocking in at only about 15 minutes and performed hourly, it’s honestly a great live theatrical introduction for little ones, and offers some mysterious fun without being scary.
You're not here for the food.
It’s hard to overstate how notorious the food at Casa Bonita used to be. For the reopening, James Beard–nominated chef and prominent restaurateur Dana Rodriguez was brought in to revamp the menu, and the results are . . . good. Not great, to tell you the truth. But good.
Expect the usual Tex-Mex heavy hitters: cheese or chicken enchiladas, brisket burritos, crunchy shell taco salads, and nachos, all accompanied by serviceable rice and beans and an undressed “cabbage salad,” which looks like a garnish or unfinished slaw. Kids ages 3 to 12 have the options of a hamburger or cheeseburger, mini burrito, or chicken tenders.
Nothing is outright bad, but a step below the fare at many casual taquerias. Don’t expect leftovers with these portion sizes. Extra jalapenos or hot sauce go a long way.
Taste the sweet and pillowy sopaipillas, though, fresh from a fryer and dipped in warm honey, and you’ll understand why Cartman was so motivated to get in.
Your dining table is your entry point, not your final destination.
At no point did we feel rushed during the meal, but do be aware that you’re expected to move along and enjoy the grounds once you’ve paid for dinner. A note in the menu politely nudges, "There is so much to see at Casa Bonita! To maximize your visit, each table reservation is for a specific time period.” In other words, scoot your keister after you’ve eaten.
Fret not—there are plenty of benches and bars to rest your legs, and there’s a coat check you can use if you don’t want to schlep your belongings through Black Bart’s Cave.
(Shooting gallery at Casa Bonita restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado | Credit: Dan Jakes)
You’ll encounter surprises at every turn.
Strolling around, we discovered tons of creative details. Some favorites:
- • a wishing well that activates an illusion when you throw coins down it and peer in
- • “snake” tubes that blast air if you stick your hand in them
- • a pair of animatronic skeletons that do a vaudeville-style banter routine
- • cuckoo-clock-esque activations of art pieces at bars that occur every time certain drinks are ordered
- • walk-around characters, including a gorilla, a sheriff, pirates, and a tableside close magician
In general, there’s so much live entertainment—guitarists, mariachi bands, jugglers—that it’s hard not to get swept up by the party energy. Beyond being an impressive athletic spectacle, the cliff divers amp up the crowd and add an exciting surreality to the whole experience.
Don’t expect to do it all in one visit.
Casa Bonita is great at creating anticipation of something fun and cool around every corner, and making good on that expectation. The best way to enjoy is to wander and enjoy surprises as they come, not tick items off a list.
We recommend allowing 2 or 3 hours to explore. And then planning to come back another time for seconds.
To make a reservation, go to CasaBonitaDenver.com.
