A cultural phenomena š½
Whether deserved or not, Casa Bonita is legend. You have to go at least once. So make the most of the mayhem whenever your ticket arrives.
Casa Bonita is the person from the online dating platform who drags you out so long before meeting that you eventually lose interest ā but you still take the date when they finally make time, just to find out.
At least thatās how it felt to me, considering I took the first tour of the place in May 2023, before it grand reopened, and I didnāt get off the forever long waitlist to book seats until January 2024. We finally dined in mid February. By then, so many other folks had been and shared photos and impressions that I came to think my experience would be old news regardless of how it went. (I took heart in friends and Side Dish loyalists telling me they did want to know what Schnip thought of the place.)
Nevertheless, here I am with my unique critique and the necessary disclaimers. Firstly, I must identify myself as a first-time Casa Bonita visitor. I didnāt grow up in Colorado and didnāt hear about the place until college here, when a CC pal mentioned it from his upbringing. A couple years after we graduated the Southpark episode premiered and I vaguely remember the hoopla. Flash forward to modern history and I tuned in mainly as a work duty, tracking the big food and drink news event as any responsible journalist would. Point being I have zero sentiment and emotion attached to the place. Though Iāve learned enough to know that many people do.
I happened to talk one this very morning as I prepared to write this. I was in a coffee meeting with Rasta Pastaās Rebecca Taraborelli and when I mentioned Casa Bonita her face lit up and she professed her lifelong love for it. So naturally, I dove in and interviewed her. (ā Did you catch that veiled waterfall reference there? Pretty splashy, right? Oh and a pun to boot?! How dare I?)
Rebecca tells me that as a Springs kiddo, she went annually. āIt opened in ā73, the year I was born, so we grew up togetherā¦ It smelled like piss in the corners and the food was covered in this terrible Cheez Whiz and it was creepy, but we loved it!ā
I try to ignore the cognitive dissonance that sentence invites, interpreting it in my head as āso itās like good-bad or ābad goodā or whatever. But she elaborates: āItās like when you go to Water World, and itās awful, but you still go.ā (My boy brain interpretation: āso itās like punching yourself in the nuts, and it hurts like all hell, but you do it anyway, with glee.ā)
My girlfriend later confirms. āIt used to be like this dilapidated Chuck E. Cheese, you know, like where the animatronics donāt quite work right ā¦ but the kids loved it.ā She grew up between California and Texas before moving here in 2012, and initially didnāt know Casa Bonita was real when she saw it on Southpark. Once she got wise, they went ā more than once. (Huh? What is it about old Casa Bonita sucking so hard that people couldnāt get enough, right up until the Covid pandemic closure?)
Rebecca finally makes sense to me when she calls Casa Bonita a ācultural phenomena,ā which at least captures the collective delusion. āWe were so proud when it was on Southpark ā that the world finally understood what we understood.ā Now she takes her kids. She appreciates the absence of Cheese Whiz. She says they make a hell of a margarita. āAnd itās clean now.ā Seeing it from her adult point of view now, she says, āthey say you canāt go back again, but I did, and it was better.ā
Shit. Iāve just hijacked my own story with Rebeccaās story. Back to mine: I reserved four tickets for me, my girlfriend and her now-older teenage kids to hit up lunch one Saturday. Total cost (pre-drinks and entertainment on-site): $209.73, which included $10 extra for āflexā tickets that allow you to move the date if needed, but not obtain a refund. It felt like purchasing travel insurance just to go out to eat. (Read: Kinda silly annoying but necessary just in case, since they expect timely arrivals.) Consider how much money Casa Bonita will make this year on that feature alone. (I bet they store that treasure somewhere deep in Black Bartās Cave.)
Anyway, we do the thing. We leave early to drive up, wait our 10 or so minutes in line outside queuing to get in through the metal detectors. We go through the cattle line to order our food and walk down the prep line to watch it be made and meet up with a runner at the end who escorts us to our table in an area designed to look like a mine shaft. Every few minutes someone elseās dumb kid plays on this installation of a dynamite detonator wherein it either explodes and the whole room rumbles with theatric effects or an audio clip plays with an exaggerated hillbilly voice saying ānot another dud!ā
A carnival-esque Love Tester machine around the corner from our table reads my palm and lights a red bulb next to the word ājealousā before spitting out a ticket that informs me: āLove is like a pizza. Even when itās bad, itās still pretty good.ā On the backside of the ticket it says ā Casa Bonita - The Greatest Restaurant in The World.ā
Eh. Rebecca might accept that, but Iām skeptical. Letās eatā¦ while listening to a rendition of āFĆ¼r Eliseā on the banjo!
From the seven available entrĆ©e items ā thatās it, itās a quite limited menu ā we go for the chicken mole, chile relleno, Beef Suadero and carnitas tacos (the item everyone before me said to get). Note once youāre seated you can buy extra entrĆ©e items (sans side rice and beans and cabbage salad otherwise included) for a fair $9. And when youāre ready, dessert additions are $8. Cocktails and wines are $13 and beers are $6-$9.
Weāre presented with complimentary salsa and chips and the salsaās as boring as Casa Bonitaās waitlist is long. Incidentally, urban lore has that list at a million people deep, but last time I asked the PR people about it they wouldnāt provide a number. According to this fresh Denver 7 report, Casa Bonita Chef/Culinary Partner Dana Rodriguez puts the number at 400,000 to 600,000.
In contrast to that salsa, the house hot sauces are actually pretty perky and bright despite not packing much of a punch. So ask for some with your meal. I first fork into the rice and beans to take a litmus test and am not encouraged ā theyāre serviceable at best. Oddly, the rice aroma evokes hay bales and the indoor giraffe area at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
Having had a pretty great mole negro just days prior to my visit, Iām not impressed by this version. Itās okay, dark and muddy and sesame seed flecked and the polloās moist enough, but the spices like anise are fairly muted; itās please-all safe. Still, after a couple bites, the kids tell me this food is ā1000-percentā improved from that of the old days. Itās basically on par with standard chain Mexican restaurants now or the average local gut-bomb spots.
Thatās further evidenced by the Suadero, non-fatty beef brisket in a tart salsa verde. It reads more like pot roast. The relleno meanwhile totally surprises us a light vegetarian (and GF and vegan-optional) item devoid of the typical excessive cheese melt inside. The poblanoās not all battered and fried to hell either, instead baked with a healthier calabacitas filling that includes cauliflower and corn and smothered in an acidic tomato sauce topped in asadero cheese crumble and a thick drizzle of crema. Definitely make this one of your choices, or a $9 add-on.
And yes, everyoneās right about the carnitas being a legit-good menu item. Sure, theyāre a touch overly salty, but the flavors and texture are on-point, with chewy, stringy meat threads and lightly charred edges. This time the salsa verdeās served in a ramekin on the side, versus on top like on the Suadero.
We enjoy a Mexican Firing Squad-spinoff cocktail named El Diablo, which subs blackberry syrup for the typical grenadine. I donāt enjoy accidentally (and repeatedly) dragging the long tail ends of my Casa Bonita wristband (that denotes me as 21+) though my food. I do appreciate how when you want anything you just raise the flag at the end of the table to signal staff; it prevents obsequious service and frees them up to run sopapillas all over the place.
We donāt fill up on those freebies (which are decent as puffy fried dough squares coated in cinnamon-sugar and honey) and opt to order a couple desserts. The spicy Mexican chocolate budino is basically a chocolate pudding with some spicy pepper heat in the finish; itās good. I donāt expect or really want the whipped cream and barely-toasted marshmallow topping so I let the kids remove it. The Mini Carlota de Limon is a Mexican key lime ice box cake also served in a metallic pudding cup and garnished with a lime slice and pair of commercial Mexican Marias Gamesa cookies. We like the big sweet-citrus zing as a final flavor to depart the table with.
After dining you can stay as long as you wish to roam the building and take in the shows, arcade and gift shops. We work our way through the crowds to wander dark passageways, observe one of the divers, watch a few minutes of a puppet show and then Sorsoroās magic show. (You can purchase The Insanely Mysterious Sorsoro Delux Magic Kit for $29.95 in the gift shop, alongside every other Casa Bonita-branded item you can think of, down to a metal dog bowl or snow globe.)
I donāt wish to elaborate much on this part because if you still havenāt gotten your invite and seen it, Iād rather not ruin any potential surprises ā like the super creepy-ass, egg-head shouting baby statue posed like an archeological discovery deep in a cave. (Okay thatās one thingy spoiled, but thereās plenty more to find.) If thereās a remotely coherent narrative to be deciphered between the odd artifacts and surrounding attractions itās all lost on me. Itās a bit of chaos and randomsauce all played up by hype and Casa Bonitaās enduring legacy.
I guess nobody said that to be a cultural phenomena, as Rebecca put it to me, you have to actually make sense. Just go with it. Have fun. Take the obligatory pictures with Cartman inside and in front of the Pepto-pink facade and fountain out front. Clap for the divers, magician and puppeteer. Eat your carnitas and sopapillas and hit up the shooting gallery.
Rejoice because this is the revived Casa Bonita restored to a glory it never actually had before. Southpark fame (and money) has ensured itās here to stay. The foodās not scary anymore and some items are solidly respectable.
While the Rebeccas of this world might make annual pilgrimage ā if the waitlist filters them through fast enough at the 700-dining-seat capacity ā others will be satisfied to experience the shtick once.
I would say thatās me. Iām glad I took the date and went to find out, and would probably be haunted by FOMO had I not. But there was nothing so spectacular that I want to go through the waitlist and stressful, be-there-on-time-or-else routine again. In a way, as I eluded to in the beginning of my story, I was over it before it began.
But thatās just me. I want to know what you think about your visit, if youāve been:
That giraffe ammonia burn still sticking with you?
Iāve got my link to buy tix but we havenāt found a date that works for our party of 8 or even 6, (if we secretly leave out a couple friends, hoping they wonāt find outš¬š¬). We have another month to continue trying. Iām looking forward to those sopopillas!!