Casa Bonita Lives On!

I stopped at the shopping plaza in Lakewood, Colorado that houses Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant that has achieved cult-like status here in the Denver area, to buy Christmas wrapping paper at the nearby Dollar Tree this past Christmas Eve. And I must say, Casa Bonita is looking good. It closed at the start of the pandemic and a year later the owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Happily, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, bought it for $3.1 million and then spent $40 million renovating it. Seriously. Forty million dollars to renovate it. For years Casa Bonita was a kitschy place, serving mediocre Mexican food and featuring a 30-foot indoor waterfall, from which cliff divers would jump for the amusement of the diners. It was an all-you-can-eat place, and all you had to do was raise the Mexican flag in the center of the table and the waitress would come to refill your plate. These days it has somehow gone upscale, featuring a well-known chef and upscale prices as well - $40 per person for dinner, and $45 if you want to be close to the waterfall. What I want to know is whether it is still an all-you-can-eat kind of place now that the food is actually decent? And even at those prices, it is very difficult to actually get a reservation. In any case, no matter how much they charge, I suspect they will never recover that $40 million. How in God's name could it cost that much? It boggles the mind. And by the way, the Dollar Tree was completely out of wrapping paper. Figures.