Casa Bonita – which in Spanish is translated as “Beautiful House” – was a chain of Mexican themed restaurants that originated in Oklahoma City.
It was founded by Bill Waugh in 1968. Casa Bonita was known to give its customers a great show and serve good food at the same time, known as “eatertainment.”
Naugles
Naugles was a Southern California fast food chain of Mexican restaurants, established in 1970. Naugles was founded by former Del Taco partner Nick Naugle.
The first restaurant was in Riverside, California. The chain’s motto was “Prepare food fresh. Serve customer fast. Keep place clean!”
Naugles
After a while, Naugles merged with Del Taco, and changed its name to Del Taco in most of the store locations.
Now, there are only two locations open in the areas of Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach, California. In 2015, a revived Naugles chain was established by Christian Ziebarth, after he discovered that the trademarks had been abandoned by the original successor.
Casa Bonita
They had locations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, as well as in Lakewood, Colorado. There is currently only one location left open, in Lakewood, but it started operating under a different name.
The restaurant enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame after an episode of South Park was titled “Casa Bonita.”
Chi-Chi’s
In 1975, Chi-Chi’s opened its first store, and by March of 1995 already had 210 locations. “A celebration of food” was its first slogan, later changed to “Life always needs a little salsa.”
The company fell on hard times after a Hepatitis A outbreak at one of their establishments. Kind of like a zombie attack, the outbreak of this sickness killed at least four people and the company struggled to recover.