South Park Episode Combines Coney Island Hot Dog With Casa Bonita

The description for South Park's penultimate Season 26 episode reads: "The South Park boys renovate and open a historic restaurant in Colorado."

Sound familiar? In late 2021, the cartoon's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, spent $3 million (at least) to buy Casa Bonita, the kitschy Mexican restaurant they made world-famous with Season 7, Episode 11. Casa Bonita will reopen in May, after the big pink palace at 6715 West Colfax Avenue put the new owners through the wringer with expensive repairs and renovations, including repainting it an even brighter Pepto-Bismol shade and hunting for Casa Bonita employees — 550 of them.

So Parker and Stone were likely drawing from lived experience in the episode "DikinBaus Hot Dogs," in which Cartman decides to rehab his new home — a hot dog-shaped shop whose sign reads "Coney Island Hot Dogs" but which looks identical to Bailey's Coney Island Boardwalk hot dog stand — into DikinBaus Hot Dogs, a restaurant that not only serves hot dogs with balls drawn in ketchup on the plate, but is an entertainment spectacle, with such features as rides, games and a grotto (again, sound familiar?).

Most of all, the episode satirizes the struggle for small businesses to find employees. Butters gets a job at an ice cream stand, and when Stan inquires whether businesses can even hire kids, Butters answers: "Yeah, well, I guess these days it's real hard for businesses to find people to work, so they'll take whatever they can get!"

Butters is excited to show off his paycheck, igniting Cartman's jealousy and leading our favorite cartoon villain to get a job at the same ice cream store. But in true Cartman fashion, it isn't long before he decides he doesn't want to work. When he doesn't return from a break, he calls in on Zoom: "I wasn't feeling the best, so I decided to work from home."

"How can he work from home?" the owner blusters. "This is an ice cream shop!"

"Yeah, but no, ’cause see, I'm taking a mental health day," Cartman responds. "Yeah, young people can just ask for a mental health day and employers can't deny them. It's my mental health day."

After he's fed up with "working," as well as the thought of "how much money the owner of this place is making while we're out busting our asses," Cartman decides to open DikinBaus Hot Dogs with Kenny.

"You know the hot dog I've been living in?" Cartman pitches Kenny. "It's an old, like, historic landmark. It's been sitting right in front of us completely ready to go. All it would take is some minor renovations and some care. We could make it awesome with, like, fun things for kids to do, and rides and games. A place that people from all over Colorado would want to come and see!"

Butters agrees to invest his money into DikinBaus Hot Dogs, but with trepidation. "This is my money; I worked hard for it," he says before Cartman nudges, "You know, you're lucky: You have money. But look at Kenny. Can you imagine what it's like for him, watching rich white boys like you just collecting paycheck after paycheck while he wallows in the filth of his tiny house?"

Of course, Parker and Stone are notable rich white guys. And as with Casa Bonita, the redevelopment of Cartman's hot dog stand draws news broadcasters and other broadcasters who want to follow the landmark's revival.

Coney Island Boardwalk is actually for sale, but so far, South Park's creators haven't snatched it up. And it and Casa Bonita aren't the only Colorado landmarks showcased in the series; find more real Colorado locations seen in South Park here.

The last episode of this South Park season airs at 10 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, on Comedy Central; you can stream last week's episode and all South Park episodes on Paramount+, HBO and southpark.cc.com.