The Refries That Bind: A Cavernous Cantina Returns, Cliff Divers and All

Colorado’s defining features include glorious mountain peaks, vibrant seasonal colors, skiing, and a widespread urge to exercise and eat well. But for generations of Colorado kids, perhaps the most shared experience was Casa Bonita, a huge, dingy, dimly lit, underground diner with food many diners considered barely edible.

Casa Bonita — sprawling over 52,000 square feet in the Denver suburb of Lakewood — served steamed beans, tacos, and enchiladas to thousands of people a day, buffet style. The dinner entertainment was a childhood fever’s dream: waterfalls, cliff divers, Black Bart’s Cave, counterfeit gold and silver mines, puppet shows, and a person in a gorilla costume chased by a sheriff, who sometimes joined in the cliff diving. Casa Bonita’s curious child grab was chronicled in an episode of “South Park.”

After that episode ended, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the show’s creators, were frequently asked if such a place really existed. “Oh, that’s a place,” Mr. Parker often said, he said recently. “It’s crazy. It’s weird.” Like many Colorado kids, Mr. Parker had held his birthday parties there.

Then, in 2020, Casa Bonita went bankrupt, hit by the pandemic. The house was already in disrepair, dilapidated by overdue maintenance, riddled with electrical hazards, the ventilation systems covered in grease, and the carpet caked in something like concrete. The jokes about the food had earned it the nickname Casa NoEata. Still, his passing was mourned.