A group led by a Casa Bonita superfan has filed an objection to the proposed sale of the iconic Denver-area restaurant to the creators of “South Park,” claiming his group should be able to buy the restaurant instead.
The group, called Save Casa Bonita, LLC, filed documents this week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, saying it would like to purchase the quirky tourist attraction for $3.5 million, $400,000 more than the purchase price offered by “South Park’s” Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
But Casa Bonita’s current owner, Summit Family Restaurants, Inc., submitted a reply Wednesday asking the court to overrule Save Casa Bonita’s objection and approve the sale to Parker and Stone, saying that $3.1 million is a fair price that will pay all of the restaurant’s creditors in full.
What’s more, Summit contends, Save Casa Bonita has “provided no proof of funds.”
The fate of the landmark, 47-year-old Casa Bonita establishment, with its 85-foot-tall pink tower façade, has been uncertain since it closed its doors at the beginning of the pandemic. Summit Family Restaurants filed for Chapter 11 protection in April.
The 52,000-square-foot roadside attraction houses a Mexican restaurant that also features regular puppet shows and other entertainment, a 30-foot-high waterfall, seating for 1,000 diners, a spooky area known as “Black Bart’s Cave,” and, of course, a gift shop.
The location has been featured in several “South Park” episodes, and the show’s creators grew up in Colorado and frequented the restaurant as kids.
Led by Casa Bonita superfan Andrew Novick, who has been visiting the restaurant since the first year it opened and celebrated his 300th trip there with an event in 2019, the Save Casa Bonita group launched a GoFundMe campaign that was able to pay the claims of some independent creditors in the bankruptcy case.
In his filing, Novick said he submitted a letter of intent to purchase Casa Bonita on July 2, which was declined on July 30. Not long after, Stone and Parker said they were buying the attraction.
Novick and “a passionate group of local restaurateurs with years of experience and a wholehearted goal of preserving Casa Bonita” say in the filing that Summit has been pressured by its landlord to sell to the “South Park” creators, thus sullying the deal.
Summit, in its objection, states that the landlord’s motivations are not relevant to the question of whether it “exercised sound business judgment” in agreeing to sell to Parker and Stone.
A judge has yet to rule in the case.
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