Casa Bonita — Restaurant in Lakewood

This is difficult to give a fair rating. It is a historical Denver landmark. The recovery of this property makes it all the more remarkable and difficult to rate hard.

It is a tourist destination, even for locals. I have been waiting well over a year to get into the place. My cousin was able to get us tickets.

Start with cost and there are plenty of hidden costs that are not explained well. More up charges than anything. We went on a Saturday night which I believe increases the cost of just the meal itself.

$40/person x 8 = $320 soda included (we prepaid on my cousin’s account so not sure if there is tax) Alcoholic beverages are $13 (listed) x 5 = $65

I was asked to leave a card for the drinks. Which is fine, and not out of the ordinary. This will come into play later.

This is where the hidden up charge comes in as the server asked us if we wanted a “tall” which after we paid come to find out that is code for a double which is an additional $4/drink so another $20

We were asked, “would you like hot fresh corn tortillas?” Which of course who wouldn’t like hot fresh corn tortillas. Never was a charge mentioned. $6 x 3 = $18

Thankfully the extra salsa which we requested early on, but got after we were pretty much finished with our meal was free. Kind of a waste, but glad there was not additional fee.

Sopapilla time which is what this place in known for. The first round of sopapilla are free. You get one per person. They come covered in honey. Which they are amazing that way. Here is where the server was taking orders for the dip for the sopapilla. I finally caught onto the charges at this point and asked, “is this additional cost?” This is after everyone ordered a “dip” at $8/dip. We canceled, but did get one flan which was actually very good and really did enhance the sopapilla. $8 overall. And we ended up getting another basket of 4 for $1 which they actually do tell you there is an additional charge.

I didn’t find out about ALL of the additional charges until I questioned why my card was charged $122.65 - NEVER EVER WAS I TOLD THE TOTAL OF THE BILL. I literally had to question the charges. Not cool at all.

I will say it didn’t sour my experience, and I will go back. Just really want there to be more transparency in the future. It is not necessary to hide all of these up charges. And it will leave some with a bad taste in their mouth so to speak.

The food - it is served cafeteria style. It is on the fresher side. And because they know how many guests to expect, they are able to prepare in advance without letting the food just sit. Very tasty, and way more “upscale” than days of old. You can order more food at the table. I was full off of what we got.

We ate the chicken mole. Chicken was a little bit dry on the bigger chunks, but tasty overall. Also got the enchiladas. Also very good, but cold by the time we ate. I like to consume my drink before I eat. So I waited. Thankfully not very long.

Like I said I will return. This is a treat due to the overall cost. And I for one am ecstatic that we DO NOT have to TIP! It is refreshing knowing every single one of the workers is paid well. So the cost of the meal is actually going to be more than what you are used to for a night out.

What would I change?

Allow your guests to sit and then place their order this way we can get comfortable first and enjoy a drink. Be transparent about the additional charges; it isn’t hard to put it on the menu or at the bare minimum place a card on the table that explains this! Before you just charge a card bring the guest a receipt with the final charges. I should not have to get a manager to bring me a receipt. Which in hindsight sounds like this is an issue they are having with customers 🤔 So something needs to change. Like I said I don’t have an issue if you are being transparent

Go have fun at this landmark. Just know it is an experience and it is not going to be cheap night out!

Oh! Arrive early. The parking SUCKS! And you will not be seated without every member of your...

This was my very first experience to Casa Bonita, and it did not disappoint. I only knew of the place, obviously, because of South Park. I know total cliché.

We were very lucky to have finally received "the call" (email) to be one of the lucky ones to be invited to dine. So we grabbed some friends, and the 8 of us showed up for the evening.

We arrived about 15 minutes before our reservation; there were several parties waiting outside to be seated. Once we checked in, it didn't take long for us to go through security and embark on our journey.

The first step is to get in and put your food order in. This is also where they check your ID and give you a wristband for adult beverages. (Even if you aren't drinking, the wristband is a souvenir of sorts)

The process is pretty quick. Many people in our party chose enchiladas. I chose the chicken mole. Another in the party ordered the brisket, and someone ordered a taco salad.

After putting our order in, we were guided down a hallway to await our food order and were sat by our waitstaff within about 5 mins.

Walking into the main room with the cliff divers is a pretty surreal experience. I have to feel I channeled my inner Eric Cartman at that point. There was so much going on as far as atmosphere it was pretty overwhelming.

Once we were seated, we were able to put our drink order in. Most of our table ordered margaritas. I ordered a house margarita with Tajin on the rim. It didn't take long for our waitress to bring the first round of drinks. It didn't take long for her to bring us any requested drink or request. She was very attentive to our table and others she was in charge of.

Denver food. Ahh, yes.

Let's say the food was about par for Denver. I can only talk about the flavor of my chicken mole, served with rice and refried beans. The beans needed something. Maybe to be cooked with some sort of animal fat, some salt, pepper, or seasoning of any sort could be simply added, but it wasn't. Similarly, the rice could have been made with chicken and vegetable stock, and once again, salt, pepper, or any seasoning would have been welcome. Now to the chicken mole. The chicken was a little dry and had no flavor. The mole sauce was fairly basic but was a fair attempt.

Chips and salsa were brought to the table to accompany our entrées. I grew up in AZ and have had my share of salsas. Their salsa is top 5 for me.

My expectations were a little more for the food because the new chef was supposed to be of high caliber. The food was a BB gun on the caliber list. I definitely wasn't impressed.

I think when I return, I will try the carnitas tacos or the taco salad. 🤔

After we had our entrée,the table was cleared, and it was time for sopaipillas!!! They did not disappoint. Plenty were brought to the table. Some people had 2 or 3. Others were trying to eat 4 or 5. I muscled down 2 myself.

After we enjoyed our dessert, everyone decided to wander around.

We watched the diving routines. Some went to Black Barts cave. (I missed this because I was dragged to the gift shop for 20 minutes of shopping. 🛍

The place has many levels of fun and is well decorated. You don't have to walk more than 20 steps to stay hydrated either, as there are various bars strewn throughout. 🥴

So we spent about an hour getting our souvenir on and taking in all of the activities. It wasn't a crowded feeling at all at any point. Even watching the diving shows, everyone had a place to stand and nobody had an obstructed view. It appeared everyone in the place was having a fun time; I know my group certainly was!

In summation, the experience holds to the stereotype of the old tradition of the restaurant. Come for the fun and sopaipillas because the rest of the food is meh. The drinks we all had were made well and use better liquors than most area establishments. Take a lot of pictures and have a lot of fun! Buy stuff!!

Revised: food is really good after they updated the menu. It's still a great experience and we had just as much fun as the first time we...

I'm surprised and disappointed at how under-whelming this was after all the hype of reopening (especially considering how low the expectations have been for Casa Bonita for the last 20+ years!). The food was only marginally better than it used to be, but 3 times the cost and not all- you-can-eat ($39 per plate, regardless of what you order). The alcoholic drinks were good. The entertainment was somehow worse that it used to be. The kids meals were... just odd. The kids (my nephew and niece) didn't eat them and when I tried their food, I could see why - it was just a very odd tasting. It just felt overall like everything was clunky. There was also this weird vibe from checking-in all till we left... like an "us-vs-them" mentality from all the employees and security. It was so strange. They have a very long way to go before this would feel like it's not just thrown together in my opinoin. Overall, it feels like the new ownership got lost in what they were trying to do here. They kept the original Casa Bonita Vibe (kind of), but tried to go more upscale (kind of). It makes for a very odd atmosphere because they didn't nail it on either end and it just feels like a very chaotic and poorly put-together version of what Casa Bonita used to be (or what it could be... but lost somewhere in the middle).

Most of our experience was fun because we made it fun, but one really bad experience we had was with our servers: Apparently, you get about one hour at the table... which totally makes sense, but nobody told us that at any point. We took a break from eating and went to see the puppet show and explored for a little bit with the kids and came back to find that the table was cleared, our stuff (bags, coats, special gifts we brought for the kids, etc.) were gone! It turns out that they brought our stuff to lost and found and cleared the table for the "next guests" (we had a late reservation, so there were clearly no other guests coming after us and dozens of tables around us that didn't have anyone sitting at them all night). The floor manager was there and literally scolded us for ignoring the server's instructions and leaving the table - he was instantly combative when we initially asked about our stuff. We were so confused because the servers didn't tell us anything about timing, even when they asked for the credit card up front in case we went to explore and "forgot" to come back to the table. The manager didn't believe us, which was absurd because the server was literally in training and the person training her was clearly new, too... everything is obviously still in beta here and really clunky, but instead of acknowledging the fact that that was a possibility, he was so rude and stuck to his guns that we instructed about the time limit. The people sitting at the next table over said something to us after we were finished and said they weren't told about it either and were happy to hear what had happened to us so that they didn't have the same thing happen to them. (We were originally planning to order more sopapillas when we got back to the table, so after we talked with the manager about our stuff, we asked if we could get a basket of sopapillas. He said yes, but he was going to charge us $2 because the table had already been cleared. It was the most bizarre employee interaction at a restaurant I've had.) I'm guessing the employees are just stressed out like crazy with this soft open, but still a really weird experience.

Casa Bonita used to be a place we'd go for birthday parties and fun events, but it seems like this is now like a one-time destination-type of place. I live 5 minutes from here but don't really have any reason to want to go back at this point, which is a huge bummer. Obviously if you're in town on a trip and want to experience it because of South Park, I'd say do it. If you're local and have been here in the past, I wouldn't waste your...