Casa Bonita Performer Refutes Matt Stone, Says Management ‘Broke the Law’

While the inner workings of most Mexican restaurants don’t make national news, Casa Bonita is a whole other story.

Eric Cartman’s favorite giant pink novelty eatery, which was famously purchased by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone in 2021, has been the subject of a major labor dispute this year — yes another labor dispute — this time involving the attraction’s character performers, who voted to unionize with Actors’ Equity and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees last year.

After all, no one wants to spend eight hours a day running around a fake Mexican village while dressed in a sweaty Manbearpig costume without being compensated properly, right?

In September, a statement from the Actors’ Equity Association revealed that management had eliminated several key roles from the restaurant, including “Black Bart, Captain Isabella, Amazon Ani and the Sheriff.” The union argued that this is an “illegal” and “retaliatory” tactic, timed to coincide with their first contract negotiation, which “both harms the workers who make Casa Bonita special and deprives patrons of the magic of the Casa Bonita experience.” They even “filed an Unfair Labor Practice with the National Labor Relations Board.”

Not long after this statement was issued, Matt Stone spoke to The Denver Post in an apparent attempt to smooth things over. Stone clarified that characters like Black Bart weren’t being removed from the restaurant forever, merely sidelined temporarily to make space for October’s “Casa BOOnita” theme.

“It would be confusing for patrons,” Stone said of the decision to remove characters like Black Bart during the Halloween season. “So we decided to do something different, right? And this is going to be something that goes on with Casa Bonita from now on. We always want it to be an evolving canvas of performers and patrons.” He also called the suggestion that these characters were being removed permanently a “falsehood.”

Well, now we’re finally getting to hear directly from one of Casa Bonita’s workers — and their account of what’s been going isn’t quite so harmless as Stone suggested.

Writing for Denver’s Westword, gorilla performer Joshua Emerson lauded the “Pink Palace,” noting that it has “brought joy and created that magic for 51 years, building relationships over multiple generations.” But he also blasted the current Casa Bonita management’s “continued mistreatment of the Entertainment cast.”

Emerson revealed that the employees playing the “roaming characters” were only given a two week heads-up that their characters would cut for the month of October, leaving them all scrambling to figure out how to “deal with the loss of income.”

“They broke the law when they did it,” Emerson wrote. “The Casa Bonita Entertainment cast voted to have Actors’ Equity represent us as our union twice, both times unanimously. Management is required by federal law to bargain with Equity over making changes to working conditions during ongoing contract negotiations.”

The actor recalled seeing some of his fellow Casa Bonita performers “break down and cry” over the news, and several of them were forced to resign from their jobs as a result of the “careless removal” of the characters. 

The performers are also unhappy that the restaurant has encouraged the public to dress up as the same roaming characters they cut for Casa BOOnita. One angry worker called it an “insulting and downright dangerous decision,” pointing out that Disney has a policy against allowing theme park guests to cosplay as Disney characters for good reason. “Can’t wait for a kid to meet some drunk adult three margaritas deep dressed as ‘Black Bart,’” they argued. 

Incidentally, Stone also suggested that something similar could happen for Christmastime — unless of course he and Parker get visited by three ghosts.