Casa Bonita

06/15/2008 Posted by tracie89

everyone says how crappy and old it is... well duh. its suppose to resemble mexico. which is old and crappy and possibly decrepit. if the designers were going for that, then they did one hell of a job!

06/01/2008 Posted by native82

I'm a native Denverite and I managed to go 32 years without visiting Casa Bonita. So when I went with my kids, I did not have the warm, fuzzy memories that my friends have of this pit. If you are a germaphobe like me, your skin will crawl the minute you walk in. You HAVE to buy the food and if you can get through the line without tossing your cookies, I would suggest not even touching it. The whole place smells like chlorine from the divers (I would worry about my child if they were employed as a diver there). So this place is touted as being for the kids which is all fine and good, but when I went with my kids for lunch (we had family in town who insisted on going) in the middle of the week, there were middle aged men, sitting alone (I would assume to eat lunch ick). If the draw is not the food, why on earth would you spend your lunch hour there, hmmmmmmm? So basically, watch your kids when you are there. Finally, there used to be an Office Depot next to Casa Bonita. When it closed, my mom went in to buy some clearance office supplies. She wanted some bulk paper and the person helping her said he would try to find some reams that had not been chewed through by the furry creatures that come over from Casa Bonita. Okay, when furry creatures come over to eat paper versus the food at Casa Bonita, you know you have a restaurant that must be on the take with the health inspectors office.

Pros: nada

Cons: everything

05/29/2008 Posted by cuxl

What an awful place. The food is the worst Mexican food ever. I’ve had much better food from street vendors in Cabo. I can’t believe that anyone thinks this is a good place. The so called great atmosphere is terrible. The interior is cheap and old and the place is in a bad part of town.

Pros: nothing

Cons: everything

05/27/2008 Posted by CiaoBaby1999

Haha Yeah, the food is not that good but it is a cool place to go. The sopapillas are good, and the fried ice cream is great. There is a little flag pole on all the tables where you raise the flag when you want more food, its all you can eat. If you go at the right time (4pm-4:30pm) the line isnt that long. Oh yeah, when youre in line after youve ordered and paid, pay attention!!!! lol the mexican ladies in the kitchen will yell at you if you are not moving fast enough. The plates are hot and they throw them across the counter at you. Its actually quite amusing!!!!!!!

05/23/2008 Posted by larsoness

This is the asbsolute worst place I have ever been to in my life. I recently took my 2 sons to Casa Bonita since they'd been begging me to take them after seeing the South Park episode all about Casa Bonita and how GREAT it is. (lol) Let me first start by saying how LONG the freaking line was - you think it's not that bad but then after waiting 20 minutes and moving a little, you turn a corner and realize you have another 20 minutes, then another corner, then another....it's ridiculous. I have NO idea why this place is so crowded all the freaking time. While trying to keep my kids entertained when waiting for over and hour in the line, and having to dodge people left and right who were going to and from the bathroom, I kept telling myself this place must be AWESOME if this many people are willing to wait this long. I WAS MISTAKEN. We were given menus with about 6 options to choose from. I had already been warned of the 'velveeta-esque' style mexican food so we went with the fajitas ($15 a plate mind you) and then after waiting in the FOOD line, and then realizing that it was OUR responsibility to carry our own trays to our table (let me remind you it's just me and two small children here...and 3 trays...my kids would have dropped their food on the floor in seconds had I not hunted down some employee to help us to our table. The service was SO slow (or nonexistent is more like it) and like the others, I could not get up from our table with my kids to see the cliff divers, because they hunted me down and made me pay my bill while I was watching the show. Which, by the way, was just a long skit and a stupid cowboy jumping about 10 feet into the water. Ridiculous. We made our way to the arcade, which most of the games didn't even work. My shoes were sticking to the floor, THIS PLACE IS SO FILTHY. Bought the kids some light sabers and light-up guns - they were like $10 each. UNREAL. This is the MOST overrated and disgusting place I've even been. DONT GO!!!!

Cons: NO PROS, ALL CONS. THIS PLACE IS DISGUSTING AND OVERPRICED.

04/03/2008 Posted by suzieqt333

This place had the worst food not just worst Mexican food, but worst food i can recall eating at a restaurant. I can see where the cliff divers are entertaining. Past that, it was not worth the $12.00 a plate paid. Mind you, it is all you can eat, but i didnt even want my first plate let a l one a second. I got a cheese enchilada plate which i swear was made out of a very cheap processed cheese. it was inedible. The place REQUIRES you to buy at least 2$ worth of food to even enter the building. (note a soda was a whopping 2.15$!) I also didnt like the fact that instead of charging me at the entrance for my food which i had to immediately order off their VERY limited menu. in stead, when i went to walk around the building i was told that at least one person had to stay at the table OR i had to pay before i left the table relinquishing my right to more horrible food, but also to more soda, water etc. I can see where kids would get a big kick out of this place, but 12$ is not worth the entertainment you get..as you will nearly immediately pass on the food as it is not edible in any way.

Cons: everything.

02/24/2008 Posted by drfoobar

It's pretty much the best place, ever. All you can eat food, all you can eat sopapillias, and flippin' cliff divers, people! Cliff divers being chased by MONKEYS! And sheriffs! And pirates! There's like mariachis, and black bart's cave, and video games, and fortune tellers, and all sorts of awesomeness! Beg you parents, I know I do every day! Seriously though, kids love it, and the food ain't exactly the draw. It's truly an experience. A big, cadillac-pink experience.

Pros: Fun, Cliff Divers, Pirates, Monkeys

Cons: Food

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful

10/17/2007 Posted by friedpb&j

This place is foul. Expect less than a theme restaurant experience, more a grade school talent show with prison quality food at no bid contract pricing. The Interior of the building is formed as a giant series of caves and grottos in some tropical locale, complete with plastic palm trees and extreme humidity, from the pool no doubt. Sadly that tropical air is also saturated with atomized fryer grease giving every surface a disgusting feel and every breath at least 9 calories. As noted above the food is worse than bad. My wife had chicken fajitas which consisted of a very dry grilled chicken breast and some oily yellow onions served with an enormous mound of shredded iceberg lettuce and gumball sized (literally) servings of canned guacamole and sour cream, probably the worst fajitas I have ever seen but not totally inedible. I had the enchilada plate, a real horrorshow attempt at one of my favorite foods: one cheese enchilada, made with an ultra creamy low quality processed chese and topped with an even lower quality pump cheese sauce, completely inedible under any circumstance, also on the plate were two "meat" enchiladas, the filling looked, smelled, tasted and felt like warmed mighty dog and was drowned in a vile red chile pepper muck masquerading as enchilada sauce, edible only if you are starving or feel bad about leaving $11 on a plate untouched. The sopapillas were only mostly bad, as hungry as I was after passing on my food I could have eaten a grease soaked napkin dipped in honey without noticing a difference. If you a drink get a bottled beer, then at least you'll know its' not a virgin like that carafe of cheap margarita mix my wife and I could not drink. After eating those parts of the meal which do not induce a gag reflex there are no shortage of broken and outdated games which vend tickets with which you can trade for cheap bits of pastic which have a life span equivilant to the time it takes to escape, I mean walk to the door.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful

10/04/2007 Posted by azurecielo52479

Growing up in Denver, Casa Bonita was always a fun place for birthday parties and special treats, but the food has been and will probably always be some of the WORST FOOD I have ever had. It is amusing still even as an adult to watch the underpaid, mildly bored cliff divers and entertainers, and I still have enough of the child in me to enjoy scaring people in Black Bart's Cave. My fiance and I were in the area yesterday and decided for the fun of it to go in again, but he got the bright idea to actually EAT there. I made the mistake of attempting to eat the "cheese" enchilada's--I wish that it was even that disgusting substance called Velveeta-- and paid for by vominting for 35 minutes. Throwing up after attempts at consuming the strange substances that they call food is common and always preferable to keeping it down and suffering for days after. So if you don't heed my advice and actually ingest some of the stuff, (I am not suggesting that you become bulimic), you may want to consider bringing some Ipecac. It may seem like a waste to some to pay for food that you won't eat, but either with a group of kids or a decent amount the kid in you, you can still have fun. P.S. The sopapillas, while not the best, are safe to consume. If you ask for cinnamon along with the honey, they are actually quite tasty.

Pros: The atmosphere is great and everything around is you fun

Cons: Ingesting food is not recommended and the service is better at a gas station

09/05/2007 Posted by carrotlady

The first time we visited Casa Bonita was in 1976 and my then 8 and 6 year olds had a ball, as we all did. It was a truly unique experience for a family from the Midwest. Since that time I have eaten many Mexican meals and can say Mexican food is one of my favorites. But I still hanker for the Casa Bonita experience anyway! My daughter now lives in Colorado and we made a pilgrimage to CB for her daughter who is 3. I can honestly say we all enjoyed our experience as much 30 plus years later as that first time. My granddaughter was enthralled! My daughter and her husband both really know food and they suspended any critism they might usually have for such average food and just enjoyed the show. We all agreed that we needed to get my son and his family out so they could join the fun. The puppet show was the most fun for our little Alice, but she really enjoyed the "scary" gorilla, too. And those sopapillas just cannot be beat. Go and have fun!

Pros: atmosphere, sopapillas

Cons: none that I've seen