LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Performers at the iconic Casa Bonita restaurant were in costume on Halloween, but instead of delighting guests inside, they were outside the restaurant on the picket line.
The Actors’ Equity Association, which represents cliff divers, roving actors and other unionized performers, announced the strike on Wednesday. The union is concerned about low wages and a lack of safety for those performers.
Robert Christie, who plays the character Black Bart at the restaurant, said it has been “a wonderful experience,” but “it has not paid off.”
Christie came to the restaurant in 2023 when it reopened under the ownership of "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
“That's the reason I'm here,” Christie told Denver7 Friday. “I really understand their tone and their point of view. That said, a lot of the guests come in thinking this is not a family restaurant and that they can abuse the entertainment. Aside from that, we've never had a fire drill. We've never had an active shooter drill. There's no emergency action plan in place for if anything were to happen to a [cliff] diver, and we're fed up.”
Christie said while bartenders and servers make $30 an hour, plus tips, performers on the low end of the pay range make only about $21 an hour.
“These people have no scripts,” he explained. “Everything they do is essentially improv. They are out there out of the kindness of their heart, their creativity, their experience in entertainment, delivering consistently for the guests that come to Casa Bonita, banking on entertainment as making their experience worthwhile.”
The restaurant took on a Halloween theme this fall, becoming "Casa Boo-nita." But some performers say the change has led to their hours being cut.
“They brought this on themselves with laying off over 1,000 hours of unionized workers’ labor in the month of October," Christie said. "Everything just kind of snowballed into this. And they eventually walked away from the table.”
Matt Stone addressed the concern that the Halloween theme would take away beloved characters from the restaurant in an exclusive interview with our news partners at The Denver Post, saying plans would change seasonally, but the characters would not be permanently eliminated.
Denver7 pushed for answers from Casa Bonita management, which responded with the following statement:
“At Casa Bonita, we value all of our team members and their well being. As a policy we do not comment on ongoing labor negotiations.”
The strike is set to last through Saturday. It’s unclear if it will be extended.
“Casa Bonita is not going anywhere,” said Christie. “This place is an institution, and we want to make sure that it survives for the next 50 years so that future generations of performers can come here and work under safe conditions.”
On Friday, the Taylor family, originally from Colorado, flew in from San Diego to visit the restaurant.
“We used to come here all the time for Halloween, so I thought it’d be real special to come here and enjoy it with my family once again,” said Jonah Taylor.
His father, Jeff, called the timing a “bummer.” The family kept their dinner reservations, but expressed support for the striking performers.
Jonah called the strike “a complete shocker, just considering how much money [ownership] put into the place.”
“I think they deserve the best, especially when it comes to, you know, entertaining and, you know, making the restaurant even better,” he said of the performers. “I hope it's not like a ghost town in there, but I'm sure it's going to be a lot more different without the people that really make the place.”
