For a few days,Trey Parkerwas self-admittedly giddy.
Not just any restaurant, mind you this one was unique.
I simply told them, OK, so were going to this restaurant.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone speaking at the ‘Casa Bonita Mi Amor!" screening at the 2024 Telluride Film FestivalVivien Killilea/Getty Images
You know the McDonalds that has, like, a playground in the parking lot?
Its kind of like that.
I just couldnt wait to see the look on their faces.
Thats always my favorite part.
Apparently, its going to do absolutely fucking nothing!
Because its fucking broken.
Of course, they run off and have a great time for the next three hours.
And Im sitting there texting our guys, going God-fucking-dammit, nothing fucking works!’
Stone starts laughing so hard that you worry hes going to fall out of his leaned-back chair.
Trey and that fucking bird, oh, man, he says.
Im going to make a sitcom thats just Trey and the malfunctioning fortune-telling bird.
It would be the funniest show on television.
For Parker, the chance to buy this storied institution of his youth was the equivalent of purchasing Disneyland.
Jared Polisto their discovery of endless setbacks and sticker-shock moments.
But weve built and bought and redone enough houses to know that its never that easy.
I think we truly believed this would be, Lets just reopen it and then we can be creative.
That quickly turned into: Oh, we are totally and utterly fucked here, arent we?'
As long as I invite so-and-so, then they have to invite me to theirs!'
It ends with him bum-rushing the restaurant and jumping off the indoor waterfalls cliff before getting arrested.
We thought people would be like, Oh, its this weird thing,' Parker says.
But it really helped Casa Bonita.
I think they actually stayed in business because of that episode.
But that was all kind of part of the experience.
Were gonna go to this place to eat thatsso shitty, Stone pipes in, enthusiastically.
Itll be awesome!'
There was a chance they could become partial investors if this new company bought it.
That was the initial conversation, Parker says.
Then it was: OK, those guys are outcompletely.Wed actually just be doing it ourselves.
And most of the time Im just like, Yep.
Of course were doing this!'
We did zero due diligence, Stone adds, shaking his head.
It was very much like, We bought Casa Bonita, sweet!
You know, well fix it up and Trey can make a new and improved Black Barts Cave.
How hard could it be?
Well … youve seen the movie.
The answer is millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of hard.
Bradford soon became their unofficial filmmaker-in-residence.
OBrien, to embed themselves and start shooting.
And he ended up being right I think the doc really is a work of art.
But even before that …
I remember sitting in a meeting between us and the contractors, feeling completely miserable.
Then I catch Arthur and P.H.
If I imagine I am in something likeLost in La ManchaorHearts of Darkness,that makes me happy.
I knew we could get something funny out of this eventually.
Anything that can go wrong virtually does go wrong, with accrued interest.
Both were incredibly relieved to watch gaggles of kids go nuts over all of it once more.
I still play board games with my friends.
We play a lot of D&D.
Im still very much that kid.
Just dont ask them to watch the doc again.
I watched it once all the way through, and thats it, Parker says.
Otherwise, I would just be sitting there going, Well,thatstill doesnt work.Thatstill doesnt work either.
They still havent fucking fixedthat!
And dont get me started on the fucking bird!'
