Casa Bonita has filed for bankruptcy due to the crippling, year-long economic shutdowns ordered by Gov. Polis in response to COVID-19.

The iconic landmark has been in business for 50 years and is hoping Chapter 11 protection will help it reorganize its debt so that it can one day reopen, Denver7 reports.

Court filings indicate the Arizona company’s noncontingent liquated debts are less than $7.5 million.

Casa Bonita has not reopened since the initial shutdown ordered by Polis.

A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing offers a business time to reorganize their debts, not necessarily close for good.

More than a year into the COVID crisis, Colorado’s economy has yet to heal with the unemployment rate stuck at 6.6% in January and February, reports the Denver Post.

The Colorado Restaurant Association didn’t keep tabs on every business that closed last year, but its counterpart, the National Restaurant Association, reported last fall that one in six dining establishments across the country shut their doors in 2020, CRA spokeswoman Erin Dewey wrote in an email.

 

Colorado restaurants are still seeing revenues 40% lower than pre-pandemic levels. Staffing is still down by about a third, translating to 78,000 fewer jobs in the industry, according to CRA’s March membership survey.

Polis has maintained autonomous rule through a constant string of state of emergency orders for more than a year now.

Restaurants that challenged Polis’s shutdown order and tried to reopen to avoid economic ruin were raided by state revenue officials, their liquor licenses cancelled and their inventories seized. 

After Major League Baseball caved to President Biden’s directive to take sides in a political dispute and the July All-Stars game was moved from Atlanta to Denver, Polis assured Coloradans the pandemic would be over by then so all the seats in Coors Stadium could be filled with 50,000 woke Democrats. 

No word on whether all restrictions on restaurants statewide will be lifted by then.