Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Casa Bonita Renovation Got the Documentary Treatment Before Its Grand Opening
Tomorrow, Trey Parker and Matt Stone will unveil a finished project that promises to be the most exciting development related to the Denver-area food and entertainment megaplex Casa Bonita since the South Park creators first bought the restaurant back in 2021. But much like Casa Bonita itself, the Casa Bonita movie still won’t be open to the public.
The three-years-and-counting renovations that Parker and Stone have undertaken on their childhood tacos-and-puppet-show paradise have already racked up nine figures in expenses for the creative and culinary partners, and their upcoming documentary about the journey is one of the stranger strategies they could have taken to earn some of that budget back.
Tomorrow, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Parker and Stone will premiere ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! to a select crowd of film buffs and foodies as they pull back the curtain on their most expensive, ambitious and arduous project since the duo nearly killed themselves making Team America: World Police.
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Parker and Stone will also participate in a Q&A session hosted by Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen along with the documentary’s director Arthur Bradford following the world premiere of ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!. Maybe, in the future, the South Park pair can celebrate the documentary’s 10-year anniversary with the Casa Bonita grand opening.
“I think people will be surprised to see the level of hands-on devotion Matt and Trey poured into this place,” Bradford predicted in a statement about ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!, saying of Parker specifically, “Trey was fueled by a Wonka-like passion to bring back the Casa Bonita of his youth.”
Parker and Stone certainly have a Wonka-like attitude toward admitting guests to dine at Casa Bonita — golden tickets were easier to come by than invitations to Casa Bonita during whichever round of closed, limited, soft-launch dinner services the restaurant is on now. For the average South Park fan to get a seat at the still-not-fully-open establishment, they have to sign up for the waiting list on the Casa Bonita website, but the wait will be even more excruciating than the one we have to endure in between each successive six-episode South Park season.
Back in March, Casa Bonita head chef Dana “Loca” Rodriguez reported that there were “400,000 to 600,000 people are on the waitlist” for the restaurant’s trial runs, and some guests have claimed that it took them almost a year to get a table at the exclusive establishment. Despite Parker and Stone’s wholly non-committal hope that their restaurant could open up general reservations later this summer, there is still no official timetable for Casa Bonita’s full, unrestricted opening — but the documentary will start streaming on Paramount+ later this year.
Given the release schedule for Parker and Stone's South Park projects, it’s fitting that we’re getting a Casa Bonita documentary before the restaurant is even open, and, considering how the rollout of early access dinners have gone for the layman, it’s apt that only the film-festival-attending elites of New York will get to see behind the scenes of the Colorado restaurant before Paramount+ decides to let the rest of us take a look.
Parker and Stone should be careful with this escalation in their taco-teasing marketing of Casa Bonita. Sooner or later, some unhinged fan is going to pull a Cartman and jump the line and the waterfall in one trespassing motion.
