Casa Bonita Goes Full Casa BOOnita, and the Cliff Divers Came Back

The gorilla is back in the dining room. So are the cliff divers.

If you have been following Casa Bonita the way we have, you know that sentence means something this year. Last fall, the pink tower at 6715 W. Colfax Ave. ran its first Halloween takeover, and it ran it mostly without the performers that make the place the place. A strike saw to that. This year the roaming characters, the puppeteers, the magic shows and the people who jump off a 30 foot cliff into a pool while you eat sopapillas are all back on the schedule.

That is the headline most people miss. The costumes and the candlelight get the attention. The labor story underneath it is the part worth watching.

What Casa BOOnita actually is

Casa BOOnita is the Halloween and Día de los Muertos version of Casa Bonita, and it runs from Sept. 29 through Nov. 1, 2026. Here is the part people get wrong. There is no separate ticket. You book a regular dining reservation, you show up, and the whole spooky overlay is just included. Come in costume. They want you in costume.

For that reservation you get the usual Casa Bonita experience dressed for the season. Larger than life installations. Interactive displays. A signature seasonal cocktail. Halloween themed menu items. And then the stuff that has always made this building a Front Range legend, the underground waterfalls, Black Bart's Cave, the cliff divers, the puppet shows, and yes, the gorilla.

If you want to take a piece home, the El Mercado gift shop carries limited edition BOOnita merch. Which is dangerous for me, because Hayley and I cannot walk out of a gift shop empty handed. Ever.

On pricing, I will give you last year's numbers since that is what we have. In the 2025 run, standard seating started at

This is a 52,000 square foot monster

Let me put the scale on this for you, because people forget. Casa Bonita is 52,000 square feet. It seats 1,100 people. That is not a restaurant. That is a theme park that happens to serve enchiladas.

The original Casa Bonita was opened by founder Bill Waugh in Oklahoma City in 1968. The Lakewood location, the one everyone in Colorado means when they say Casa Bonita, opened in 1974. So this thing has been a part of growing up in this state for 50 years now.

Then in 2021, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone bought it through their company, The Beautiful House, LLC. They poured money into it, closed it for a long renovation, and reopened it on June 23, 2023, billing it, with a completely straight face, as "The Greatest Restaurant in the World."

Matt Stone has been pretty direct about why the seasonal pop-ups exist. He described the whole concept as a way to "do something fun so Casa Bonita doesn't become stodgy and stale." Honestly, that is the correct instinct for a 50 year old attraction. You keep it moving or it turns into a museum.

The strike, and why the divers were gone

Here is the thing nobody puts in the fun press release.

The performers at Casa Bonita are represented by Actors' Equity. As of July 2026, the union and management were still negotiating a first contract, and they were fighting over the stuff that actually matters to people doing physical work. Wages. Scheduling. Safety. And remember, safety at this job means jumping off a cliff into a pool on repeat. That is not an abstract word here.

While those first contract talks were going, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. That charge, and the labor fight behind it, is a big reason the roaming characters, puppeteers, magic shows and cliff divers were largely missing from last year's Casa BOOnita. The 2025 debut still drew national attention as a costumed, candlelit celebration. It just did it with a quieter cast than usual.

So when I tell you the divers are back this year, I am not just hyping a dinner. The people who make this place feel alive are the whole fight, and the fact that they are performing again is the real story under the pumpkins.

Should you go

Yes. Obviously yes.

If you grew up here, you already know the sopapillas with the little flag and the cave and the diver who comes out one last time to the balcony. Doing all of that in October, candlelit, surrounded by Día de los Muertos installations, with a crowd in costume, is about as Colorado a fall night as you can put together without leaving Lakewood.

Book early. 1,100 seats sounds like a lot until you remember this runs barely five weeks and the whole state wants in. Grab the weekday lunch slot if you want the lower price and the shorter wait.

And keep an eye on the labor side as you go. The best version of this place only exists when the people performing in it are taken care of.