Casa Bonita Re-Born (Parker: stone, about, inside)

[history nerd]

Originally Posted by ShampooBanana

That is a massive step up from what it was before. Can't wait to try it.

I fully agree. I have a soft spot for Casa Bonita but I also definitely dumped a lot of canned cheese and tortillas into trashcans over the years.

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Don't expect to find the best Mexican food in Denver metro, but places nearby (<30 min)have many great choices, considering we all have different "bests".

I have a few favorite Mexican joints around the metro. Obviously not as good as my my wife's hometown on the border, but cheap and delicious. Casa Bonita isn't about the food, it's about the experience... but good food is only going to make that experience better, I can't wait to take the kiddos!

[suzco]

For all of you able to get behind the paywall and read the NYTimes article, it's fun to read the oh so many comments. Most all are some variation of - used to live there, oh, the memories; visited denver as a child, oh, the memories; grew up in colorado, oh the memories. . .

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by suzco

For all of you able to get behind the paywall and read the NYTimes article, it's fun to read the oh so many comments. Most all are some variation of - used to live there, oh, the memories; visited denver as a child, oh, the memories; grew up in colorado, oh the memories. . .

It's the best $30/month I spend, which includes their Cooking, Athletic and other features which are great.

Here's a few of the 175 comments from NY Times readers. Their comments are moderated, like City-Data. Their reader comments on serious articles can run into the thousands with many of them being as good or better than the articles being reported. Sometimes the authors respond by replying to reader comments.

Reader Comments:

"I grew up in western Nebraska and we went to Denver often and had many meals- including my 16th birthday party dinner there! It was like heaven and I'm so happy my parents seemed to enjoy it as much as we did!"

"When the Casa Bonita South Park episode first aired, I was living here [NY] and watching with a friend. It's a hilarious episode, and so accurate. My friend couldn't believe it. "That place actually exists?!" As a Colorado native, who spent many wonderful visits to Casa Bonita as a child, I'm thrilled that this place has been resurrected by Stone and Parker. The menu sounds wonderful and I'm sure Dana Rodriguez has done a masterful job of revitalizing the food. I'm glad the older décor and wacky sensibilities have been kept intact. It might not make sense, but it is a lot of fun. I'm excited to revisit once it re-opens and share it with younger family members."

"Loved reading about some guys doing something with all their money that other people can enjoy instead of just buying a bigger house. And hopefully it becomes a sustainable business for them."

"I recall eating here once in 1989. I'm relieved to see it wasn't a hallucination."

[suzco]

I think my favorite part of the story - multi-award winning chef Dana Rodriguez, aka Loca, tells that when she first came to Denver as a teenage Mexican immigrant, she applied for a job at Casa Bonita. She was not hired, she was told, because she was not qualified. When she applied for the job now, the first thing she said was, "am I qualified now"?

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by suzco

I think my favorite part of the story - multi-award winning chef Dana Rodriguez, aka Loca, tells that when she first came to Denver as a teenage Mexican immigrant, she applied for a job at Casa Bonita. She was not hired, she was told, because she was not qualified. When she applied for the job now, the first thing she said was, "am I qualified now"?

The pictures in this article are just too cool, so I've used one of my 10 monthly 'gift' selections to get this link so that everyone should be able to get past the firewall and see them. Don't forget to read the comments from readers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/u...smid=url-share

[mic111]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

The pictures in this article are just too cool, so I've used one of my 10 monthly 'gift' selections to get this link so that everyone should be able to get past the firewall and see them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/u...smid=url-share

Thanks! There are so many cool spaces inside that aren't pictured. We've gone almost every year as it is a childhood tradition of my husband since it opened in 1974.

There used to be only one gluten free (GF) item and it was actually pretty decent so I never understood the complaints about the food but it was the only item I ever ordered. Now there are quite a few GF options under the new chef. But the notoriety will make it hard to get in.

We've never been when all the dining rooms were open. Usually it was just the main and all the others were available to explore. Originally it seated 1100 people so was quite an operation. I wonder if they rehabbed all the different dining areas. There were so many that we never saw used and they had very interesting themed decorations.

The pink doesn't look like how I remember it but probably it was quite faded by the time I saw it.

[AZtoCO1]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

The pictures in this article are just too cool, so I've used one of my 10 monthly 'gift' selections to get this link so that everyone should be able to get past the firewall and see them. Don't forget to read the comments from readers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/u...smid=url-share

Thank you for doing that Mike! I am on the list, waiting for my chance to go back. I cannot wait!

[suzco]

An update from Mile High on the Cheap today:
Casa Bonita Announces Grand Reopening — Tickets Required

Are you ready for fresh sopaipillas again, Denver? Denver’s fun family restaurant since 1973, Casa Bonita is finally opening its pink castle doors for business again. This year marks the iconic local restaurant’s 50th anniversary, so there are many reasons to celebrate its much-anticipated reopening! (We’ve seen both 1973 and 1974 stated as the first year in Casa Bonita’s marketing.)


While beta-testing Casa Bonita, the iconic family friendly restaurant will be open with limited dinner hours.


The first diners will be pulled exclusively from its email list. No walk-ins. It appears that those selected will have an opportunity to purchase tickets. . .

[Mike from back east]

Now the WaPo has picked up the event, with a great picture of the outside of the place.

Article title: "‘South Park’ creators revive the world’s worst — and most fun — restaurant"

Excerpt:

Americans of enormous wealth, Abby and John D. Rockefeller Jr. tapped their bottomless resources to restore a national treasure, Colonial Williamsburg. Long neglected, that hotbed of revolutionary fervor came back to life beneath a long, steady rain of money from the Rockefeller fortune.

That story came to mind when I recently read that Casa Bonita has been brought back from the dead and made grander than before. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the wealthy creators of the “South Park” TV series and the Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon,” have done for a weird and wonderful, vaguely Mexican restaurant in suburban Denver what the Rockefellers did for Virginia’s cradle of democracy.

Not a perfect parallel, I grant you. Patrick Henry, hero of Williamsburg, never dined on the burrito plate at the lowbrow Chartres of strip-mall America. If he had, his famous plea might have been a simple: “Give me death.” The food was that bad. The only remotely palatable thing on the menu at Casa Bonita was puffed dough drizzled with honey, which patrons summoned to their tables by the basket load, simply by raising a flag. Thomas Jefferson, had he visited this place, might have added to our unalienable rights a bottomless supply of sopaipillas.

[suzco]

An update from Westword:

Casa Bonita Opening Dates,Ticket Prices and Everything Else We Know
June 21, 2023

"We try to do the right thing in everything that we do," says Dana Rodriguez, executive chef of Casa Bonita 2.0, who has overhauled the food and drink program ahead of the pink palace's reopening under its new owners, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

In late May, we had the chance to taste almost all of the menu items — including the sopaipillas! — and to see the waterfall in action once again.

Since then, Casa Bonita has been in soft-opening mode, inviting only small groups of VIP guests for dinner service. But now the general public will be able to go inside — well, at least some of the general public.

On June 21, a single-use link to purchase tickets for June 23-24 and June 29-July 1 was sent out to some of Casa Bonita's email list subscribers; reservations can be made for groups of up to eight, and more dates will be added on a rolling basis. . .