Lovers and supporters of the imperiled Casa Bonita restaurant, the kitschy, longtime West Colfax Avenue entertainment institution, rallied Saturday hoping to gain community support to reopen the shuttered business.
A couple of dozen people waved signs and shouted out to drivers passing by on busy West Colfax Avenue. Drivers honked horns in response and some passersby stopped to inquire as the gathering spread the message: “Save Casa Bonita.”
“There is nothing else like it in the world,” said Merhia Wiese, 47, of Denver, one of the organizers of the rally. “Where else can you go into a restaurant and find a waterfall with people diving off of it?”
Wiese started going to Casa Bonita as a child, taken there by her parents. She has taken her children to the Mexican-themed entertainment spot and hopes to share a meal and have some thrills with grandchildren there in the future.
“This is a cultural icon,” Wiese said of the multigenerational family attraction. “New Denver needs old Denver.”
Opened in Lakewood, at 6715 West Colfax Ave., in 1974, the restaurant could seat more than 1,000 customers. Strolling Mariachi bands performed along with jugglers and other entertainers. A highlight of a visit was indoor, waterfall cliff diving, with daredevils performing an assortment of dives from a 30-foot cliff into a pool of water at the base of a waterfall. The entertainment also featured puppet shows, a magic theater, arcade games and a “haunted tunnel” named Black Bart’s Cave. In 2015, Casa Bonita was designated a historical landmark by the Lakewood Historical Society.
On April 6, the eatery’s owner, Summit Family Restaurants, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Arizona after the Lakewood location had been closed for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While closed, the restaurant has been losing about $40,000 monthly, according to court documents.
A GoFundMe site, independent of the ownership group, has been started to “Save Casa Bonita.” As of Saturday afternoon the group had raised almost $47,000 of a $100,000 goal.
Danny Newman, 40, of Denver, like Wiese, also grew up with multiple family visits to Casa Bonita.
“We went all the time,” Newman said. “It was the craziest, most magical place ever. I thought kids all over the country had experiences like this.”
Newman’s dad, David, applied to be a cliff diver in 1974, the opening year, and was accepted but then had to turn down the job because he was attending the University of Colorado and was competing in gymnastics. School officials at the time told him that if he made money cliff diving he couldn’t be considered a student-athlete.”
While David bowed out of Casa Bonita, Newman’s mother, Paula, went to work there as a waitress. Paula later went to work for My Brother’s Bar, the oldest bar in Denver, which the family purchased in 2016. Newman said that his family has been looking into purchasing Casa Bonita.
Organizers of the Save Casa Bonita movement are hoping that community support will help the business to reopen and to continue with its entertainment tradition.
“We’re hoping to find a way to make it locally owned and operated,” Wiese said. “Everything is up in the air.”
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“There is nothing else like it in the world:” Dozens rally to save Casa Bonita in Lakewood - The Denver Post
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