The Restaurant Everyone's Talking About in Cheyenne Still Isn't Open
September 10, 2026
September 10, 2026
Drive down Dell Range Boulevard and you might catch yourself looking for a building that isn't there yet. In March 2026, the franchise group bringing Dave's Hot Chicken to Wyoming told local reporters that a Cheyenne site deal was close to being finalized, with Dell Range Boulevard the preferred spot because of its traffic count. That's the most recent public update on record. The company's own target, set back when it first announced Wyoming plans in October 2025, was to open the Cheyenne location sometime in mid to late 2026. That window is closing right now, and there's still no confirmed address.
Meanwhile, a mile east on Capitol Avenue, a bowl of tantanmen ramen has been on the menu for well over a year at a restaurant that opened quietly enough that plenty of longtime residents still don't know it's there.
That gap between what Cheyenne is buzzing about and what Cheyenne can actually sit down and eat is the real story of this fall's food scene. If you have been waiting for the restaurant everyone keeps talking about, you might be surprised to learn it isn't the one that's open.
Dave's Hot Chicken has been "coming to Cheyenne" for the better part of a year. Montana Chicken Company first announced plans in October 2025 to bring the Nashville-style chain to Cheyenne, Casper, and Laramie, with the company's Wyatt Prime saying he hoped to open the Cheyenne location sometime in mid to late 2026. By March 2026, the group told reporters the Cheyenne deal was close to being finalized. If a location has opened since, it hasn't turned up in local coverage.
That's not a knock on the chain. It's a useful reminder of how these things actually move. A franchise announcement is a press release. A grand opening is a building permit, a lease, a build-out, and a hiring push, and in Cheyenne that sequence has already run past the self-imposed deadline, with no address announced yet.
While Dave's works through its site search, a handful of actual food businesses opened in Cheyenne well before any of this made headlines.
In 2025, Hokkaido Ramen House opened at 1720 Capitol Avenue downtown, the second Wyoming location for a Montana-based chain that started in 2021 and had grown to roughly 50 locations across 23 states by that point, with the nearest other Wyoming outpost in Casper. The Cheyenne location is run under an LLC that includes Mingyang Zhu, who also owns Wasabi Japanese Steak House in Cheyenne and restaurant ventures in Colorado and Kansas. If you want gyoza, bang bang shrimp, or a bowl of spicy beef ramen without leaving town, that option has existed downtown for a while now.
Clean Eatz has been open since 2024, offering meal-prep style food as a healthier alternative to fast food. It's owned by Gary Shaklee, a retired Fort Collins police officer of 28 years who became a regular customer of a Clean Eatz location before deciding to open his own. He has said his next goal is connecting with the University of Wyoming in Laramie to bring meal options to students there.
Owen's Hot Chicken is the trickier case. As of a mid-2025 report, signage had gone up at 2815 Ridge Road, the former Church's Chicken building across from the Albertsons on Pershing Boulevard, but no opening date had been confirmed, and the owners could not be reached for comment. Business filings with the Wyoming Secretary of State list Mingyang Zhu as part of the ownership group here too, alongside Yuesong Wang and Duan Yang. Whether the restaurant has opened since isn't clear from available reporting. Worth remembering: the building itself has a short memory for restaurants. Church's Chicken built it in 2019, opened that October, and closed within a year. A sign going up is not the same as a business staying open.
If you want a real lesson in how slowly big food and retail projects move, look at what's happening on Cheyenne's east side. Wyoming Ale Works, a popular Casper bar and grill known for its 40 beers on tap, is planning to expand into a mostly vacant retail center that used to house Big Lots. But "expansion" undersells what's actually planned. In late August 2026, founder John Johnson told the Cheyenne City Council the project only works as three connected pieces: a liquor store, an off-track betting facility operated under the Bally's name, and the restaurant itself.
The liquor store comes first, expected to open in the first quarter of 2027. The betting facility follows on an unspecified timeline. The restaurant, the part most people actually want, waits until at least 2028, partly because Johnson's company limits itself to opening one new restaurant per year across its whole operation. If you've been hearing rumors about a lively new dining spot on the east side, the honest answer is that it's real, it's coming, and it's still a couple of years out.
None of this means Cheyenne's food scene is thin while everyone waits on chains and phased developments. Railspur, just outside downtown, has built a following around birria tacos and bison lettuce wrap tacos, plus a full bar menu. The Hawthorn Tree, Alf's Pub, Black Tooth Brewery, and Asher Upstairs, tucked above Coffee Depot in the Asher Building, round out a scene that skews toward neighborhood bars and casual spots rather than anything trying too hard. If you're looking for something with more history, the Depot Plaza area downtown still anchors most of the walkable dining options within a few blocks of each other.
The event calendar tells a similar story: less hype, more actual dates on a real schedule. Here's what's on the books around Cheyenne this month, all pulled from local listings rather than vague seasonal guesses:
Add to that an exhibit at the Wyoming State Museum running through June 2027 marking the Year of the American Indian, and there's more happening within walking distance of downtown this month than most out-of-towners would guess from a quick search.
If there's one thing worth carrying out of all this, it's that the loudest announcement isn't always the most useful signal. The chain everyone mentions first still hasn't confirmed an address, even with its own opening window now underway. The expansion generating the most speculation on the east side is still years from serving a meal. Meanwhile, a ramen shop open since 2025, a meal-prep concept open since 2024, and a run of local bars and restaurants are already part of how Cheyenne eats on a Tuesday night. Keep an eye on Dell Range Boulevard and that old Big Lots building on the east side. Just don't hold your dinner plans hostage to either one.
If you're the kind of person who tracks which corner of town is changing and why, that instinct is worth having on your side when it comes to real estate too. Kari Happold and the team at Team Happold live and work in this market and are always happy to talk through what's actually happening in a Cheyenne neighborhood, whether you're planning a move or just curious. Contact Us anytime.
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