Some buildings in Wyoming are restaurants that happen to be old. The Irma Hotel in Cody is the other way around: it’s a piece of the state’s origin story that happens to serve you prime rib while you sit inside it. Buffalo Bill Cody built it, named it after his daughter, and stuck a bar in the lobby that people have been arguing about for more than a century. That’s a lot of freight for one dinner reservation to carry.
I’ll be honest with you up front, same as I always am: I haven’t eaten at the Irma myself yet. This isn’t a “here’s what I ordered” post — it’s a “here’s what you need to know before you walk in” post, because this is one of those Wyoming institutions I’d feel bad steering you toward blind. So I did the homework. Here’s the real version, legends flagged as legends.
Buffalo Bill Built It, and Named It After Irma
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody — the showman the whole town is named for — built the hotel and opened it with a party on November 18, 1902. He named it after his youngest daughter, Irma Cody, and by most accounts he doted on her. Cody meant the place to be the social hub of the frontier town he was helping put on the map, and he invited press and dignitaries from as far as Boston to the opening. It worked. The Irma became the center of gravity in Cody almost immediately, and it’s still standing on the main drag today. It landed on the National Register of Historic Places back in 1973, which tells you the building’s importance isn’t just marketing — it’s on the books.
If you want to go deeper on Cody the man versus Cody the myth, it’s a genuinely fascinating rabbit hole. There are some solid Buffalo Bill and Wild West history books worth a read before you make the trip, and they’ll make dinner hit different.
About That Cherry-Wood Bar (Let’s Be Careful Here)
The showpiece inside is the ornate cherry-wood back bar, and the story you’ll hear — from the hotel, from tour guides, from just about everyone — is that it was a personal gift from Queen Victoria to Buffalo Bill, thanks for performing his Wild West show for the British royal court.
It’s a great story. I want to be straight with you about how much of it is nailed down, though: the “gift from Queen Victoria” part is popular tradition more than documented fact. Historians tend to note the bar was crafted in France and was quite likely purchased by Cody rather than gifted by the Queen. What’s better established is the journey — the bar traveled by steamship to New York, by rail toward Montana, then the last leg by horse-drawn freight wagon, where it was reassembled in the hotel around 1902 and, by the current owners’ account, has never been moved since. So: real bar, real epic journey, genuinely gorgeous. The royal-gift chapter, take with a grain of salt. Doesn’t make it any less worth seeing.
The Food: A Western Steakhouse That Knows What It Is
The Irma leans exactly where you’d expect a Buffalo Bill steakhouse to lean — Western fare, built around beef. The signature is slow-roasted prime rib, and it shows up both as a plated entrée and as the star of a prime rib buffet during the busy season. The rest of the menu is steakhouse-with-a-frontier-accent: steaks including a buffalo rib eye, seafood like their Wild West salmon, and a steak-and-jumbo-shrimp combo for the “why choose” crowd.
What to Know Before You Order
- Prime rib — the thing the place is known for. If it’s your first visit, this is the move.
- Buffalo rib eye — the Wyoming answer to “make it more Western.”
- The buffet — runs daily in summer and often throughout the year; the prime rib buffet piles on ham, BBQ buffalo, ribs, and more. Good play if the table can’t agree.
- Breakfast — served daily 7–11 a.m. in summer (June–September), and Sundays only in the off-season, so plan around that.
On price: I’m not going to quote you numbers I can’t stand behind. It reads as a mid-range sit-down steakhouse rather than a splurge palace, but menu prices shift, so check irmahotel.com or call ahead if your budget’s tight.
The Gunfight Out Front — Yes, Really
Here’s the part that makes the Irma more than a good dinner. In summer, the Cody Gunfighters — a non-profit troupe — stage free Old West gunfight reenactments right in the street in front of the hotel. They run Monday through Saturday at 6 p.m., roughly early June through late September, with rotating 30-minute shows full of characters like Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok, all ending in a blaze of blanks. It’s free, it’s cornball in the best way, and it’s a genuinely smart bit of trip-planning: catch the 6 p.m. show, then walk straight in for dinner. That’s the itinerary.
It’s Still a Working Hotel, Too
Worth knowing: the Irma isn’t a museum with a grill bolted on. It’s a functioning hotel. The two original suites have been restored, and the other rooms are named after Cody Country pioneers. So if you’re routing through on the way to Yellowstone — Cody’s the classic east-gate approach — you can actually sleep in the building, not just eat in it.
Why It’s Worth Knowing About
Cody punches way above its weight for a small Wyoming town, and the Irma is a big reason why. If you’re already mapping a Cody food crawl, pair it with another local institution — I wrote up Cassie’s Supper Club a couple weeks back, and between the two you’ve got a pretty complete picture of how this town eats and remembers itself.
The Irma’s the kind of place where the history is the point and the food is the good excuse. Prime rib, a fake gunfight, a bar with a tall tale attached, all under a roof Buffalo Bill built for his daughter. That’s a Wyoming evening.
Address: 1192 Sheridan Ave., Cody, WY. It’s on the main drag downtown — you won’t miss it.
If you beat me to it, I want to hear about it. Tag @wyofood on Instagram or find Wyo Food on Facebook and tell me what you ordered — and whether you believe the Queen Victoria bar story. And if there’s another Wyoming institution I need to profile next, send it my way.
— Sean