South Park Restaurant Opens to Public, Sells Out Fast

The hottest ticket in Lakewood, Colorado, is an old one under snarky new management. Casa Bonita, the quirky and revered Mexican restaurant that's the passion project of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, opened up online reservations to the hoi polloi on Monday—and quickly closed them down hours later when all reservations for October and November had been spoken for, reports KDVR. "Thank you for your patience, but unfortunately all current reservations have been taken," read the website. More:

• Those sign-ups: At 9am local time on Monday, a limited window opened for "founders," aka those who were already on Casa Bonita's email list. A second window opened to the general public at 3pm, and everything shut down two hours later. Some 50,000 lined up for the first queue, and more than 30,000 for the second.

• Not exactly a grand opening: Casa Bonita has been open since June 2023, reports the Denver Post, but would-be diners had to win a lottery to get in.
• What's so quirky? The restaurant offers, yes, Mexican food. But in addition, it offers up mariachi bands, a puppet show, a wishing well, Black Bart's Cave, and perhaps most notably, a three-story cliff from which divers plunge into a lagoon.
• The backstory: Casa Bonita closed during COVID in March 2020, and the owners declared bankruptcy the following spring. Parker and Stone closed on it in August 2021, and the restaurant underwent extensive renovations. The venue, apparently a scene of nostalgia for both men, featured in a South Park episode.

(More South Park stories.)