South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the new owners of Denver’s Casa Bonita restaurant after it filed for bankruptcy in 2021. The restaurant is located in Lakewood, Colorado and is widely known for its Mexican food and cliff divers. Casa Bonita was also featured in one of South Park’s episodes in 2003. Now, the new owners have revised the tipping policy by completely eliminating it and increasing the daily wage of the workers.
South Park Creators are the new owners of Casa Bonita
After the restaurant had filed for bankruptcy in September 2021, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone purchased the same. Both Parker and Stone were adamant about buying the restaurant before its parent company had even filed for bankruptcy. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the South Park creators wanted to treat the restaurant right.
“We want to buy Casa Bonita and treat it right. I feel like it was neglected even before the pandemic.”
Parker also called buying the restaurant his “crowning achievement.”
“It’s just sitting there. It sucks. For a moment when it was like, ‘Casa Bonita is going to close down,’ we said, ‘We’re going to go buy it.’ And I felt like it was the crowning achievement of my life.”
The creators seem to be longtime fans of the restaurant as Season 7 Episode 11 of South Park features the restaurant in the animated sitcom which was titled ‘Casa Bonita.’
In a promotional video, Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis and renowned chef Dana Rodriguez announced that Casa Bonita 2.0 will help create over 500 job opportunities for the citizens. When Dana joked that Governor Jared could apply for a job, he responded-
“Well, I won’t be available for 4 years but please keep a postion open for me because I will be looking for work.”
Tipping Banned at Casa Bonita by South Park Creators
Local news portal Axios Denver reported that days before the grand opening of the newly renovated Casa Bonita which cost $40 million, the employees were asked to sign a new contract with revised wages. Reportedly, the daily wages for servers and bartenders were raised to $30 an hour with no tips. This is almost double the daily wage amount in Colorado i.e. $13.65.
The employees were asked to sign the new contract within a day or quit. While $30 an hour is a good deal for bartenders and servers on days when there is considerably less crowd, it will also hurt their pockets when the restaurant is super busy with high-paying customers.
Restaurant’s spokesperson Stefanie Jones said in a statement that the revised wages were put in place to increase efficiency and ensure fairness for the employees.
“Casa Bonita values its employees. Based on the recent beta testing of our one-of-a-kind restaurant, we have adjusted our compensation system for efficiency and fairness.”
Although, there’s no clarification as to what will happen if a customer decides to leave a tip of their own will. The new system also introduced a prepaid ticketing system to make the experience more entertainment-centric. South Park creators have been receiving a lot of backlash from several bartending and service industry communities for cutting tips which makes for the most of workers’ daily wages.
