One Eyed Buffalo is so popular in Thermopolis that there are 3 locations in the city with a population of less than 3,000

Few small towns can boast three restaurants of the same brand in a single town, but Thermopolis is one Wyoming town that can.

Neighboring Hot Springs State Park has not just one, not two, but three locations under the One Eyed Buffalo Brewing Co. umbrella.

The restaurant is a gem with signature dishes like Filet Oscar – a steak topped with crab – crab legs, authentic jagerschnitzel, tender prime rib and so many mac and cheese dishes they have their own menu .

The restaurant ranks among the top three choices in Thermopolis, according to reviews aggregated on TripAdvisor, with most calling it a “pleasant surprise” in a rural town where they didn’t expect to find food this good.

The One Eyed Buffalo satellites aren’t bad either. They include a brewery with a dozen craft beer selections and a lounge that serves as a gaming lounge with Cowboy Skill and Wyoming Downs games.

These places serve bar pizza, but eventually the restaurant owner plans to expand that service to include burgers and brats to accompany the beers.

While this may seem like the start of a great franchise, owner Jen Fisher has no plans to expand her restaurant empire beyond Thermopolis.

“I have my hands full now,” she told Cowboy State Daily with a laugh. “We will simply focus on making what we have built as successful as possible, with no plans for further development.”

But she only stopped for a second before laughing again and saying, “Of course, I said it five times, so it didn’t work well for me.”

Blame it on Chinese food

Fisher was a police dispatcher in another life and comes from a family with deep roots in law enforcement. Dispatching is, if she had to work for someone else, her first choice.

But she also loves the restaurant business, even when she was just a waitress at a Chinese restaurant in Douglas.

“It was my first job,” Fisher recalls. “And I did the dishes and kind of learned how to cook some of their dishes and stuff.”

Eventually, she and her husband built the Crooked Creek Guest Ranch in Dubois, then owned a restaurant in Idaho. In Thermopolis, Fisher ran Stone’s Throw, a restaurant on the Thermopolis Golf Course near Hot Springs State Park.

Many of One Eyed Buffalo’s recipes come from Stone’s Throw, including jagerschnitzel, made with a brandy mushroom sauce. The recipe actually belonged to a German cook, Fisher said, who personally taught Fisher how to make it.

It was during her time at Stone’s Throw that Fisher made the connection that would make her the restaurant queen of Thermopolis.

That connection was Darin Homer, owner of Homax Oil and Gas in Casper. He is now her silent partner in One Eyed Brewing.

“He and his wife had bought a house here in town, outside of town, and they are great golfers,” Fisher said. “And I’ve always been their bartender. They would come and we got to know each other over the course of a few years.

At that time, the One Eyed Buffalo Brewery was owned by a friend of Fisher’s and was a frequent topic of discussion.

“Like the man, this place is a little gold mine,” Fisher recalled.

And his response was, “Well, if you ever want it, if it ever comes up for sale, let me know and we’ll do it.” »

Not just bar chats

The thing is, it may have sounded like a bar conversation, but it turns out that Homer wasn’t actually joking when he said that, even though it might have seemed that way to Fisher at the time.

When the restaurant was put up for sale in 2016, he reminded him of what he had said before. He was all in.

And that’s how Fisher ended up with a champion and her own restaurant.

“His ideas and everything about them were very helpful in helping to build these places,” Fisher said. “And his support has been incredible for the growth of this business.”

At first, One Eyed Buffalo was a small space, but it quickly took off and grew so fast that Fisher decided to give up his lease on Stone’s Throw. She wanted to focus solely on the brewery.

“We only had 18 tables in there,” Fisher said. “And just waiting in the summer and turning people away…it broke my heart.” »

That led her to look for a larger location, but before she could find one, the liquor license went up for sale at what is now One Eyed Buffalo’s saloon.

“We were primarily interested in the full retail liquor license,” Fisher said. “But so, we opened this place and we had a little kitchen in the back, and we had the bar and the package liquor store.”

Shortly after the 2020 purchase, Wyoming Downs approached Fisher and the lounge became a game lounge, featuring Wyoming Downs and Cowboy Skill games.

It’s probably a dream

However, Fisher continued to look for that larger restaurant space, and it finally materialized right across the street from her in 2022.

It took him about a year to transform the new space into the restaurant of his dreams, a large, rustic, airy space with two large dining rooms and an upstairs room for special meetings.

The huge bar in the back has become a vibrant gathering space for Thermopolis residents and tourists. And if there’s a reunion vibe at the restaurant, well, there’s a reason for that.

“We met people from all over the country and all over the world,” Fisher said. “And many of them come back to this region every year. It’s funny because we all know them by name, and we’re like, “Hey, welcome back!” »

His regulars were in for a treat after Fisher expanded the restaurant space, with new menu items to mark the occasion. These included the aforementioned Oscar filet and crab legs, as well as the lobster.

The filet Oscar is one of the most popular items on the menu these days, Fisher said. Order it and you’ll quickly understand why. It’s a tender, melt-in-the-mouth steak with tender, sweet crab meat in a delicious brown sauce.

Work in progress

While the restaurant space is “finished” for now, Fisher told Cowboy State Daily that all three businesses are in the works.

The former restaurant space has become a craft brewery. In part, it was just easier to leave the brewery equipment where it was, and the space itself, small and cozy, was already perfect for a craft brewery.

“We’re still working on the identity of this place,” Fisher said. “But right now we’re open Wednesday through Saturday and we have Wyoming pool, darts and skill games.”

Food at the brewery is limited to pizza for now, as is the case at the saloon, but eventually Fisher envisions burgers and brats also being available.

The brewery produces about a dozen beers, with several creatively named beers that play on nearby hot springs, like Smoking’ Waters Wheat and an Australian sparkling ale called One Eyed Walkabout.

It’s a raspberry-flavored beer, sort of like a raspberry lemonade play that Fisher says is very popular.

Contact Renée Jean at [email protected]

Renee Jean can be reached at [email protected].