If you live a block away from Casa Bonita like I do (a fact I'm never more than two minutes away from telling anyone I meet for the first time), you pay attention to the hullabaloo surrounding this gawdy, Pepto Bismol-ensconsed, culturally textured, kinda-Mexican-but-also-kinda-clowncar-esque steepled palace of mystery and memories.
For the past two years or so, I've watched as new HVAC equipment was installed. A fresh coat of paint was slathered on. Two dudes known for their churlish, fart humor-fueled cartoon creation invested in it. Media speculation ran wild with tantalizing ideas of what the 'new' Casa Bonita might be like.
Would there be cliff divers? (We now know that there will be)
Is the food going to still suck? (Probably not)
Will there be South Park characters? (One can only hope)
All this has been good fun to observe from afar, but as the time draws nearer and nearer to the pink pearly gates being swung open and the starving, rampaging masses of Coloradoans are allowed ingress into Casa Bonita, I'm sitting here wondering one thing:
What's their tagline going to be?
Well, dear friends, yesterday, the marketing department at Casa Bonita, in between feverous sopaipilla binges and fielding customer demands for information related to the opening, dropped the tagline on us, in the form of this massive billboard.
Now, the first thing you'll notice is that you can't read the tagline. It's in white, against a light background.
Their creative team might have been easily forgiven for this graphic design faux pas were it not for the downright atrocity that is the tagline itself.
Are you sitting down for this?
Casa Bonita's new tagline is:
The Greatest Restaurant in the World
I'll give you a few seconds to let that sink in.
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Still not done yet?
Here's a few more.
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Ok. Let's discuss.
First of all, on the face of it, this tagline is horrifically broken. It's not about the customers or the experience of visiting Casa Bonita itself, nor is it at all unique. It's not imperative. And it attempts to depict Casa Bonita as an actual contender in the comparison of the world's ultimate dining destinations, including:
- Geranium in Copenhagen, ranked the #1 restaurant in the world, where a 3-hour tasting course will set you back a cool $600 a person.
- Maido in Lima, where you can score an authentic Peruvian dining experience and wine pairing for about $1,250.
- Quintonil in Mexico City, where $400 hardly buys you a seat at the table.
The point is this: even a cursory evaluation of the world's greatest restaurants would lead even a gastronomic neophyte to the obvious conclusion that there is no way in hell Casa Bonita could ever be considered the greatest restaurant in the world. The mere assertion is laughable, which makes Casa Bonita's new tagline comically flat, absurdly arrogant, and an absolute embarrassment for those of us who write copy for a living.
...or is it?
Here's the thing. If Casa Bonita was any other company in the world, this tagline would have been scrapped during the first round of cuts, and the person who came up with it would have been promptly and justly fired with extreme prejudice.
But, this is Casa Bonita. It's a self-evidently ridiculous place. Its history is ridiculous. It looks ridiculous. Its very brand essence is steeped in a kind of unabashedly self-aggrandizing proclamation of kitsch and camp, which, upon further and deeper consideration, makes this tagline...
absolutely...
perfect.
...because we all know Casa Bonita isn't actually the greatest restaurant in the world. It's not the greatest anything in the world. But, the very gall it takes to stand up and trumpet such a farce of a claim is exactly the kind of thing that a Casa Bonita mascot would do (I, for one, vote for Cartman).
And you know what? It works, which is why breaking all the rules is 100% A-OK, so long as you're Casa Bonita and not anyone else.
- BD
