'South Park' Creators to Set $30 an Hour Wage and Ban Tipping at Casa Bonita Restaurant
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Matt Stone and Trey Parker bought the Lakewood, Colorado, restaurant in 2021
The creators of South Park are banning tips at Casa Bonita.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators and voice actors of Comedy Central's long-running animated comedy hit, are intent on joining the service industry trend by setting a flat wage of $30 an hour for employees at their restaurant.
The Book of Mormon writers purchased the Lakewood, Colorado, business in 2021 after it suffered financial losses from the pandemic.
Featuring live cliff divers and jaw-dropping animatronics, the restaurant is equal parts culinary experience and spectacle. Parker himself held childhood birthday parties there years before the duo bought the place.
Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post/getty
With this new wage hike, Casa Bonita leads among Colorado restaurants in staff payment. The Centennial State currently sports a minimum wage of $13.65 an hour, meaning that Stone and Parker pay their staff $16.35 over minimum wage (factoring in the absence of tips).
In an interview with The New York Times, Stone and Parker detailed the process of purchasing and refurbishing the Colorado establishment. “We could have rebuilt this twice as big, for half as much money, but we spent so much restoring it, like a piece of art,” said Stone, 52.
The duo purchased Casa Bonita after its owners were forced to file for bankruptcy, primarily related to COVID-19 shutdowns. No stranger to tackling the pandemic head-on, Stone and Parker, 53, sparked headlines in crafting one of the first on-screen attempts to process the public health crisis. The result was an hour-long pandemic-themed South Park special, and a continued interest in COVID and education as the show continued to air.
When South Park recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, Parker and Stone invited contributors past and present to celebrate the show’s daring legacy in comedy.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Parker discussed his and Stone's approach to the series, explaining, “It's the fearlessness of your career. We've always been like, ‘Look, let's do this and if we get thrown out, we'll go back to Colorado.’ And that is how we've operated from day one.”
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