Pimp the place! What’s the location?
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Was the food really worse than say Chuck E Cheese? I remember it as bad but not vomit inducing. I remember the flags.
I recall going there twice, the first time would have been… holy crap, 44 years ago, and the second time would have been four years later. I recall the food being in the “OK but I’ve had better” category, but I enjoyed going there. When South Park did a Casa Bonita episode, I was gobsmacked that the place was still around. Improving the food would be a win-win.
I also recall that elsewhere in the plaza, there was a head shop. I’d have assumed there’d be a dispensary there now, but there’s nothing of the sort.
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Casa Bonita was actually created by the same guy who created Taco Bueno. His other weird restaurant passion project was Crystal’s Pizza Palace. I enjoyed visiting both chains in Texas, many many moons ago. (Even in Texas, it was bad TexMex. The last Crystal’s closed in Irving just a few years ago.)
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As a kid i have no memories of the food being good or bad, i was too busy running around and having fun. As an adult i remember the food being entirely forgettable, not awful but still pretty disappointing considering the venue and what it meant to me. I really hope the place doesn’t close for good, i’d rather see new owners keep the place going and improve upon it regardless if its the South Park guys or not.
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Casa Bonita is awful and not in a so-bad-its-good way. I say let them change it, I think they know why it’s an icon and they aren’t going to “ruin” it. Are people actually worried that the food might improve and no longer be omg-i-can’t-believe-they-serve-this-shit horrible?
Sounds like they want to bring back the mariachi band so they aren’t thinking of turning it into an Applebee’s. If there’s anyone who hasn’t lost their edge it’s them (not a huge South Park fan but I have to admit they’ve kept it interesting for a long time, and still come up with oddball stuff like the Lorde song)
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Omg. This place exists!!! I had some vague memories of it from my childhood, but they’re all so strange that I just dismissed it as a dream! We had family in Denver and went there once for a trip. It was the only time we flew somewhere together as a family. Wow!
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I can appreciate kitsch and I can appreciated dive food, but that taco plate looks like dogfood. Maybe I’m spoiled living in CA where I can eat at a different awesome Mexican place every day of the week.
I do think all that other stuff would make for a cool experience though. I mean, hey, no one goes to Chuck E. Cheese for the food. They go for the penicillin shot you’ll likely be needing after playing in the ball pit!
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Nah, Denver and really CO has good mexican food too, everything from street food to fine dinning. The high desert is famous for green Chile dishes.
I think this is more about being partial to the food one grows up with. Off the top of my head there is one mexican restaurant and two Italian places in my city that are LOVED by the people that grew up in those neighborhoods, but despised by anyone else that tries it.
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I have met a disturbing number of Front Range CO natives who do have never been skiing or boarding. This boggles my mind. However, most all the CO Natives I know went to Casa Bonita as a child, parent, or reluctant accomplice of visiting family members from out of state. All agree the food’s a level below terrible.
Casa Bonita is both a laughingstock and a legend. I’m stoked these guys bought it and hope for the best.
Up to the time it closed, Casa Bonita microwaved every single hot menu item–everything came from a freezer to your table.
Maybe they will work with WestFax Brewing (nextdoor), whose patio features a swell view of the magnificence that is Casa Bonita.
If nothing else, stopping there first will make the food (seem) better…
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…and outside the USA, people like me shake their heads and wonder. It’s primary function is to serve food, but the food is bad, and the rest of it is sleazy. A place that looks lived in is better than something that is perfect and sterile, I get that, but there are limits. I don’t really understand why grown-ups go to Disneyland and meet actors dressed as cartoon characters, but by all accounts they do a good job and people love it. But this? Maybe America isn’t broken. Maybe this is how people secretly want it to be. Maybe they should build National Lampoon’s “Get It Out Of Your System Land”.
When I was a kid in Oklahoma City we went on a field trip to the Casa Bonita there. It was pretty cool. We got free sopapillas.
I was going to mention Crystal’s if no one else had.
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That all you can eat poster is so Liartown it hurts. Is there a Poe’s law for restaurant menus?
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Sounds like another PR effort to get them in the news again.
not to change the subject, but i’m a CO native and when i lived there, i went skiing exactly once, and i had a terrible time. it took me moving to Reno in the 90s to take up snowboarding, and now i go every winter to Tahoe. Now i wish i had taken more advantage of the Rockies, but hey, at least i get Tahoe.
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Born and raised in Texas, I can tell you that, as a child, I travelled all over the country, and NO PLACE NORTH of the Red River had good TexMex (Only Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona). Usually it was horrible, tasting like something made from a rushed set of menus delivered over a horrible phone connection without cooking directions. It wasn’t until TexMex franchises spread across the country that mediocre TexMex appeared everywhere, and THEN smaller, local places started putting good TexMex out there for the masses. Being able to find good Mexican food nationally is a pretty recent phenomenon. Even in Texas, you still find the best food in local, family run joints.
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I think a good guess as to why the food is bad is because they were trying to cut costs where they could, food being the easiest place to do so. Hopefully this place can be saved from their previous management, as someone that’s been there before i think it’s a place worth keeping around.
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This Southern California native thinks that TexMex is to Mexican food what taking a shower is to scuba diving. 
But I’m giving you the “like” anyway.
[I refrained from using the more vulgar version of that metaphor You’re welcome].
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