The creators of 'South Park' bought a particularly tacky Mexican restaurant in Colorado (where they met), but weren't prepared for the amount of work it would take to reopen it.

Twenty years ago, I was lucky enough to visit the set of “Team America: World Police,” an ambitious Jerry Bruckheimer-esque puppet-based action parody for which Trey Parker and Matt Stone had built a massive North Korean set out of cocktail umbrellas and takeout containers. Driven by equal parts stubbornness and nostalgia (for the vintage “Thunderbirds” TV show), it was the craziest thing the creators of “South Park” had ever done.

That was before the couple decided to revive another guilty pleasure from their past: Casa Bonita, a beloved Mexican restaurant in the Denver area built by gringos in 1973 as the brainchild of a lazy tourist in 19th-century Acapulco. Outside, a bubblegum-pink clock tower soared high enough to be seen across town, luring families to the retro amusement park inside. The food, mass-produced and pushed out of slots in the walls, tasted a little like Taco Night in San Quentin.

Believe it or not, Casa Bonita was part of a national chain, of which the Lakewood location was its crown jewel. The unlikely tourist destination (once Colorado’s most visited) closed permanently during the pandemic, and rather than see their sweet spot destroyed, the “South Park” duo stepped in.