It’s been nearly a year since “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone purchased Lakewood’s iconic restaurant Casa Bonita, but they’re no closer to figuring out when it may open.
In an interview with The Denver Post, Parker and Stone lamented the project, if endearingly, saying they had no clue what they were getting themselves into when they picked up the landmark, which they enjoyed while growing up on the Front Range and have featured in “South Park.”
“Have you ever seen ‘Kitchen Nightmares’? It’s the very, very worst one of those you could possibly ever imagine,” said Parker. “What we thought would be, ‘Oh this will be cool. We can buy this and open it and it’ll be around again,’ turned into ‘Oh this is going to be what we have to put all our money into and hope that it works.’”
For months now, Casa Bonita has been a full blown construction site with a crew of about 80 people there daily trying to remedy the building, which Parker and Stone said had been severely neglected. Things like updating the HVAC system and plumbing, and work on electrical and gas lines – “we’re talking about just health and safety stuff, like so someone won’t die,” Stone said.
The fountain out front, for example, was razed earlier this summer amid concerns it may crumble. It is expected to be rebuilt.
