By: Ernest Gurulé

Determining which is the best zoo in the country is not as easy as it might seem. There are all kinds of lists and all kinds of zoos—as many as 3,000—and there seems to be no set pattern for pinpointing the ‘best of the best.’ But the Denver Zoo, now in its 125th year, is as close to a sure thing as any, consistently rated in the top ten of American zoos.

The opportunity to see exotic as well as familiar animals up close and personal has always been a human fascination. In Denver, zoo visitors can see 3,500 animals and 500 species.

The ancient Greeks are said to have had the first real collection of animals for public viewing. But it would be several centuries later before the first contemporary zoos opened. Austria’s Tiergarten Schonbrunn and France’s Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes, opened in the late 18th century. The Paris Zoo was abandoned during the French Revolution.

The curiosity and awe of viewing nature’s exotica remains strong today. Denver’s Zoo, said Communication Director Jake Kubé’, is Colorado’s “most visited cultural des- tination,” attracting more than two million visitors a year. Of course, zoo attendance, like so many other places, was also a casualty of COVID.

During COVID’s darkest days, the zoo actually locked its doors during what would have been peak visiting season, resulting in both a lost opportunity for visitors and meteoric drop in zoo revenue, the primary source of the facility’s oper- ating budget. “It destroyed it,” said Kubé. “Seventy percent of (zoo) revenue” comes from admissions.

When it finally did reopen, COVID’s impact was obvious and dramatic. Normal visitor traffic plunged from “fifteen to twenty thousand on a busy day” to around 3,000, Kubé said. Admission was restricted to “only 500 people an hour.” The economic ripples from COVID put never before imagined constraints on the facility. Still, despite the virus, the zoo’s animal population still needed to be fed and attended no mat- ter its impact on the rest of the world.

With vaccines and a newfound wealth of knowledge about the virus, zoo numbers are now moving in the right trajectory and, fortunately, offsetting operating expenses, which Kubé said is “a million dollars a month just in food costs,” or about $125,000 each day.

While there are an estimated three thousand zoos in the U.S., said Kubé, less than 250 are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. In order to receive the AZA’s imprimatur, zoos must meet the highest standards in both care and environment for the animals. The benchmark for each, he said, has changed dramatically over the years.

“We adhere to the strictest, highest standards of animal care and management,” said Kubé. “We have a team of wild- life biologists and animal behavioral experts” that ensure animals are cared for in the most humane way possible. This evolution began when it became obvious that warehousing animals was neither a benefit to the animals nor to visitors.

For decades, zoos operated in what might today be thought of as a dark age mindset in the treatment of animals. Knowledge about how to treat and care for them often came from circuses or traveling animal exhibits. There were no such things as zoo biologists and animal behavioral expert positions here or anywhere else.

Change began in the 60’s and 70’s, said the Zoo’s Albuquerque native “when, really, conservation became a topic and (zoos) started adapting to match the times.” No longer were the animals there just to please the public. Barred cages and darkened enclosures that once housed everything from big cats to primates began disappearing, replaced by open spaces that, as close as possible, replicated more natural settings.

In Denver, Bear Mountain, once a state of the art enclosure—a near replica of what was then thought to be a natural environment for bears—now sits vacant, a monu- ment to yesteryear. But in 1919, when it was constructed at a cost of $50,000—more than $650,000 in today’s dollars—it was thought revolutionary; an almost nature-like enclosure.

Time and a reawakening in the treatment of animals changed that mindset. “We learned more about bears and realized over time, and we tried to adapt that exhibit to what we know about the animal.” Bear Mountain, he said, simply became obsolete.

Denver’s zoo today also provides among the finest veter- inary care for its population as can be found anywhere, said Kube’. Its hospital, which sits on the 80-acre zoo grounds and gets support from the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, can treat most health issues that animals might experience. “We’re capable of treating a teeny, little four-gram lizard up to a thousand pound animal,” like a Grizzly Bear or camel. Zoo veterinarians recently diagnosed and treated “lions, tigers and hyenas” for COVID, said Kube’. No animals died from the virus.

As 125 years of captivating visitors comes to an end, the Denver Zoo will continue its long tradition of ‘Zoo Lights.’ This year’s version, the 31st, began on November 22nd and continues through January 2nd. Visitors can tour the grounds that are illuminated with more than two million LED lights. Admission ranges in price from $15-$25. Masks are required in all enclosed facilities.

By: Ernest Gurulé

For millions of Coloradans and tourists alike, an early holiday present! The ‘pink lady’ is back! Casa Bonita, the iconic landmark with the mysteriously tasting food and not-ready-for-primetime visual delights that has stood guard in a Colfax Avenue strip mall for decades, is being resurrected, given new life by a pair of Colorado natives and state icons in their own right.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of television’s ‘South Park,’ have signed the papers to become the new owners of the infamous and kitschy Casa Bonita. Of course, the new owners won’t open the doors until early next year. First, the landmark must undergo some serious renovations, renovations that thankfully include long begged and pleaded for upgrades to the restaurant’s dining options. (Spoiler alert: It’s the oodfay, folks.)

Like so many other things, COVID put a serious crimp on the Lakewood landmark forcing it to close and enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For a time, there was concern that the virus and its impact on Lakewood’s answer to Paris’s Eiffel Tower or India’s Taj Mahal might simply go away. But Parker and Stone, the most unlikely pair, swept in and saved the day.

Coloradans have known the guilty pleasures of ‘La Casa’ since the seventies—cliff divers, Black Bart’s Cave, mariachi players and appetite-strangling food. But Casa Bonita had been largely unknown to the rest of the nation. That changed when the two Coloradans featured it promi- nently in episodes of ‘South Park.’

Since season seven, ‘South Park’s’ creators have regularly made Casa Bonita a key part of storylines in the long-running cartoon. Its first appearance happened in season seven when Cartman tricks Butters into disappearing in order to wrangle an invitation to Kyle’s birthday party at Casa Bonita. (The show’s rabid watchers need no explanation of the characters.) That episode and others featuring the rose-colored landmark accurately recreated the cheesy interior of the romanticized and Mexican-themed restaurant. Cartman’s high dive in that episode was a bonus.

“Pending bankruptcy proceedings with the owner,” said Stone in a sit down interview in August with Governor Jared Polis and his ‘South Park’ co-creator and partner, “this’ll have to happen in a couple of months. We have come to an agreement with the owner, and we bought it.”

At the announcement, even the Governor, no gastronomic expert or culinary snob, had to inquire—diplomatically, politely, deferentially—about the restaurant’s bill of fare. “We all love Casa Bonita,” he said before discreetly adding, “the one area where we’d all love to see an upgrade, I think I speak for everybody who patronizes Casa Bonita, is the food could be a little better. You’ve probably heard that.” And like most every diner who’s imbibed and never asked for seconds at the place, the pair offered no rebuttal.

Stone and Parker, with their own stories as both kids who experienced the place and now with children of their own children, kids who’ve also broken bread, er, tortillas, at the place, made the pledge to address the ‘ghost at the banquet,’ the no-star food quality.

They have not only hired on a new head chef, but a person with the chops to actually make Casa Bonita’s food not only edible but enjoyable. Dana Rodriguez will serve as the joint’s Executive Chef. Rodriguez is no lightweight in upper crust food circles, either.

Rodriguez, a three-time James Beard award nominee, will be reordering the menu and taking the food to places it’s never been before, from afterthought to appetizing.

In an interview with Denver’s 5280 Magazine, Rodriguez pledged to “change nothing and improve everything.” The new exec-chef had been forewarned of the restaurant’s dining legacy. “Obviously,” she told the magazine, “the food wasn’t great, and that’s something we all remember…We’re going to make everything one thousand times better, keeping the same essence. How to bring all my flavors from Mexico, that is the most exciting part to me.”

While Coloradans know Casa Bonita as a state landmark, it may shock and surprise, maybe even disappoint that that the restaurant is more ‘new original’ than the one and only. The gorilla and cliff divers that once were thought of as Colorado’s own, actually had doppelgängers in, of all places, Arkansas and Oklahoma—places better known for squirrel stew and sassafras than sopaipillas.

While Parker and Stone seem like last guess restaurateurs, all that changed over the summer when the pair signed an astronomical $900 million deal with ViacomCBS to take ‘South Park’ all the way to 2027 and create 14 ‘SP’ episodes exclusively for streaming on the Paramount+ streaming app. The money, dizzying by any definition, clinched the decision to buy Casa Bonita said Stone. In an interview with Bloomberg’s Screentime newsletter, he called the enormous windfall “‘expletive-you’ money.’”

Parker and Stone, who have lent their characters to big screens at University of Colorado sports events and Denver Bronco and Nuggets games says their nouveau riches won’t change the way they’ve done business since ‘South Park’ first appeared nearly a quarter a century before.

“We’ve been rich for a long time,” Stone told Bloomberg. “We have nice houses and cars. Even this giant deal won’t change my day-to-day (life).” What it will change, though, is the day-to-day lives of cheesy gorillas, college student cliff divers, work-a-day cooks and families who, despite the knowledge of truly horrible food, still have a place to go.