Casa Bonita
Mexican restaurant · Spivak ·
Mexican restaurant with cliff divers, puppet shows, and arcade.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69743384/161007990.0.jpg "Casa Bonita by Photo By Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post via Getty Images")
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24976456/Casa_Bonita_s_Lagoon_landscape_photo_credit_Casa_Bonita.jpg "Casa Bonita by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images")
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72489680/1258030098.0.jpg "Casa Bonita by Hyoung Chang/Getty")
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71236372/1241348185.0.jpg "Casa Bonita by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images")
Mexican restaurant with cliff divers, puppet shows, and arcade.
"Casa Bonita in Denver is full of cliff divers, neon pink stucco, and sopaipillas—and it’s such a legendary place that South Park creators dedicated an episode to it (and later bought and renovated it). Every reservation comes with a chance to interact with balloon artists, face painters, and roaming masked characters (one of them is named ManBearPig). But if you want to explore on your own in between bites of carnitas nachos and green chile brisket, you can also check out the arcade or Black Bart’s cave, a dimly-lit pirate hideout filled with skeletons animatronic scorpions and other jumpscares." - anne cruz
"Opened 1974; closed in 2020 for 3 years Casa Bonita’s past is so storied that it has an entire Wikipedia page and a South Park episode dedicated to it. Until the gigantic Mexican restaurant's closure in 2020, generations of Colorado families came here to celebrate birthdays, eat sopapillas, and watch cliff divers plunge off indoor rock faces into pools. South Park’s creators then purchased the space, and spent millions of dollars to make it exactly as they remembered from their childhoods, but better. The result is a welcome update to the original. There are still roaming masked characters to interact with and caves to explore, but dishes like carnitas tacos are greatly improved and are now made from scratch." - anne cruz
"There’s a lot going on at Casa Bonita, a reopened Mexican restaurant that’s one of the most unique dining experiences you can have in Denver. Cliff divers throw themselves off real 30-foot waterfalls, a Man/Bear/Pig inexplicably wanders around the restaurant, and you order sopaipillas by raising a flag. You’ll have to struggle for a reservation through an email lottery, but it’s worth it to bring a bunch of friends and explore every nook and cranny of this gigantic place over a couple hours. While the food is infinitely better than it was before the renovation, do yourself a favor and stick to the menu’s best dish, the carnitas tacos. If you think this spot couldn’t get even weirder, just know that the creators of South Park are the owners, too." - allyson reedy, patricia kaowthumrong
"There’s a lot going on at Casa Bonita, a reopened Mexican restaurant that’s one of the most unique dining experiences you can have in Denver. Cliff divers throw themselves off real 30-foot waterfalls, a Man/Bear/Pig inexplicably wanders around the restaurant, and you order sopaipillas by raising a flag. You’ll have to struggle for a reservation through an email lottery, but it’s worth it to bring a bunch of friends and explore every nook and cranny of this gigantic place over a couple hours. While the food is infinitely better than it was before the renovation, do yourself a favor and stick to the menu’s best dish, the carnitas tacos. If you think this spot couldn’t get even weirder, just know that the creators of South Park are the owners, too." - Allyson Reedy
"DENVER Casa Bonita is full of cliff divers, neon pink stucco, and sopaipillas—and it’s such a legendary place that South Park even dedicated an episode to it. The palatial Mexican restaurant reopened this summer, thanks to the creators of the show. It’s one of the hardest reservations to get in Denver right now—for your own chance to wander into Black Bart’s Cave and sight the Man/Bear/Pig wandering around the space, you’ll have to get on their email list. " - anne cruz
