Casa Bonita

After hearing of the Colorado cultural institution known as Casa Bonita, Heather and I finally decided that we finally needed to go see what this place was all about. Matt, a longtime resident of Colorado before college and now back in the state once more, joined us to walk us through our first Casa Bonita experience.

Walking in the door, we encountered a huge line that was rapidly moving forward. We had just entered the cafeteria-style Mexican food line.

A food menu. There are all of about a half dozen options total. I chose the chicken deluxe dinner.

Heading up to the registers where we order our food before going to the cafeteria window.

The window where the food is handed out up ahead.

“Mexican” food waiting to go onto cafeteria trays.

Matt and I getting excited to be seated with our food trays. We kept asking every restaurant employee we met to be seated next to the waterfall. Yes, for those of you who don’t know, this gargantuan, cavernous restaurant has a 30 foot waterfall in the middle of it complete with 14 foot deep diving pool. Why? I have no idea.

Heather and I with our food and the waterfall and diving pool behind us. We got some of the absolute best seats in the entire restaurant. It pays to be persistent when asking to be seated next to the waterfall.

Yes, that’s a legit waterfall inside a restaurant. Supposedly it resembles Acapulco. The guy being spotlighted in the upper center-left is one of the entertainers for the restaurant. There are about four people who put on what amounts to dinner theater targeted at the 5-13 year old crowd. They’re actually pretty entertaining.

A birthday cliff dive special.

Another view of the waterfall from our table.

Back flip into the lagoon.

And a back flip twist!

Plastic palm trees covered in little lights line the second story railing. People flock over to watch the cliff divers. Yes, there are cliff divers.

Fire juggling and cliff diving!

More tables and diners. There are tables and diners EVERYWHERE here.

Slow motion cliff diving.

Slow motion back flip.

Another slow motion back flip for the birthday party.

One of the cliff divers talking to people in the little grass hut. I think they were a birthday party. Lots of Coloradans come to Casa Bonita for a birthday party at least once in their lives.