CHEYENNE — Cutter Davis figured Wednesday during Cheyenne Frontier Days would be just another day of the week when he popped into his favorite local coffee shop for breakfast.
The oil field worker from Louisiana couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead, he bumped into Cheyenne resident Gerardo Roldan and his family, who were all gearing up for an all-day bar crawl.
The chance meeting sent Davis on a different trajectory — tagging along with new friends and discovering a string of new venues in the Cheyenne nightlife scene.
Roldan doesn’t call it a bar crawl.
“I would just call it a fun day,” he said. “It’s Cheyenne Day. We visit with friends, hang out with friends, walk up and down the streets. We go to a place, have a drink. We go to a new spot and have another drink.”
For many, that’s an all-day, all-night Cheyenne Day thing. But the party scene isn’t confined to just Wednesday during Cheyenne Frontier Days.
With thousands of visitors pouring into town for the full 10 days of what’s billed as the world’s largest outdoor rodeo, the city’s entertainment venues are transformed into incredibly busy hot spots.
Frontier Days itself is a big 10-day party with concerts, events and rodeo. The arena floor at Frontier Park is rebranded The Party Zone at night for standing-room-only concert-goers, who can even buy fast passes to get closer to the stage.
But the party isn’t confined to The Party Zone on the CFD grounds. It spills out into Wyoming’s capital city.
That makes it Christmas in July for a lot of the businesses, which say they’ll do anywhere from 50% to 100% more business than usual.
Black Friday Goes Hawaiian
One of the most over-the-top parties happened at Railspur, where chef Juan Coronato reimagined his restaurant as a slice of Hawaii, complete with a fresh pig roast, tiki cocktails and limbo contests.
Hula and Polynesian fire dancers, as well as New Zealand fire performers, drove in from Colorado to share some island-style hospitality.
The crowd was “record-breaking,” Coronato told Cowboy State Daily, and bartender Rob Arria likened it to a Black Friday event, with people lining up outside the restaurant for the first pig roast at noon long before the doors opened.
Even with 20 to 25 people on the schedule — double Railspur’s usual staff — the bar was slammed from 11 a.m. until closing.
Drink tickets, at one point, were stacked 30 deep while a seemingly endless stream of new customers kept turning up at the bar for more drinks.
The luau, Coronato said, will definitely happen again.
Sunset and A Prickly Pear Mimosa
Corey Lynn grew up on Cheyenne Frontier Days, and it’s still one of her favorite times of the year.
These days, she owns the Downtowner, which includes the popular Paris West venue in downtown Cheyenne. Frontier Days will be among her busiest of the year, she told Cowboy State Daily.
“The restaurant, we hope for double what we do in a normal week,” she said. “So a lot more traffic. We were a little handicapped this week because we had three staff people decide they’d rather Frontier than come to work.”
Despite that, it was a great week, Lynn said.
To attract additional guests, her restaurant planted live music under the breezeway on parade days, playing until about 2 p.m.
“We’re fortunate because we have a recording studio here, and Devante of Wyoming Wave Studio, he always puts a fabulous lineup together,” Lynn said.
They also added Cheyenne Frontier Days-themed food and drinks to a slimmed-down rodeo menu, like the Prickly Pear Mimosa and the "Chey-cuterie."
“We’ll never compete with the fun things at the park, but downtown is great,” she said. “We, as a group, banded together to offer lots of things downtown, either free or really reasonably priced.”
Slammed At Pour Decisions
It’s not just downtown venues that rake in customers during Cheyenne Frontier Days. Even businesses far from the parade route report far more traffic than usual.
Like Pour Decisions, where waitresses told Cowboy State Daily they’d been “slammed” all day and had gone through every last piece of clean silverware in the joint just during the 4 p.m. to closing shift.
Four servers huddled at a side table rolling fresh napkin bundles as fast as they could to stock back up for the next day.
“There’s more than 1,000 of these,” one waitress said. “And we used every single one of them.”
They credit the crush to Cheyenne Frontier Days, and the online buzz their Facebook and TikToks have helped generate.
“Like a lot of people say they see us on Facebook or TikTok,” one waitress said. “Or like when people Google, we’re always one of the top ones and we have really high ratings.”
Cheyenne becomes a party city during Cheyenne Frontier Days, with restaurants putting together special parties to attract customers, and doing 50% to 100% more business. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Chef Juan Coronado talks to customers at Railspur during the restaurant's Cowboy Luau, which was standing room only. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Waitresses at Pour Decisions had to roll up more than 1,000 pairs of silverware after the 4 to 9 p.m. dinner rush. They did 50% ore business than usual one waitress said. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Not Just For The Young
Not all of the party-goers are young, either.
“A couple years ago, we had a lady who turned 80 and was celebrating at the parade,” Lynn said. “So we made her a sign and she had a little crown. We made her a sash, and she’s a character and she really got into it.”
Seventeen of her family members flew in from Hawaii for the celebration.
“She’s been back here every year since,” Lynn said. “So, she was out there Saturday for her 82nd birthday.”
For 10 days a year, Cheyenne puts on a party hat and becomes the kind of place where a person of any age can find just about any kind of party they want, whether it’s a pig roast with Polynesian fire dancers in the parking lot or a quieter, Prickly Pear mimosa salute to the sunset.
After that, everyone will take a little beat.
But not too much of a beat, because before too long, it will be Christmas in July all over again.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
