Drinking Wyoming: Butch's Bar, Name It If You Can

Cowboy State Daily’s 'Drinking Wyoming' is presented by Pine Bluffs Distilling.

Editor's note: Story contains profanities and adult themes.

Trying to label Butch’s Bar is like trying to nail a Jell-O shot to the wall. 

It’s a dive bar that moonlights as a dance club. It’s a neighborhood bar that wands you for weapons at the door. It’s a biker bar where a group of bikers gets pissed if you call them a biker group. It’s a place that’ll be hemmed in by Harleys and yet denied its biker bar standing by some.

“This is not a biker bar. It’s never been a biker bar,” said a decades-long patron named Rick, known by some here as The Fonz, a reference to his matte-black coif and charming quotability. “It’s an everybody bar. We let everybody in and kick the idiots out later.”

Leaving aside the bevy of bikes encircling the building on this Friday Bike Night in April, there’s at least one thing regulars like Rick all agree on: Butch’s Bar is not a bar, they’ll tell you, it’s a family. 

It’s a drowsy cliché, but if we take as our model “The Addams Family,” then it’s spot on. This is a place with a multigenerational cast of eclectic regulars with deep backstories, twisted humor and an appetite for spontaneity.

“The first time I came here, someone took a belly shot off me,” said a woman named Izzy, recalling her 21st birthday when she’d lain across the bar and let a thirsty patron slurp Jameson whiskey out of her navel. “You know those super-hot summer days when your sweat drips into your belly button and all the sudden you feel all cold and weird? That’s what it felt like.”

She has a dozen piercings above the neck and brings to Butch’s Bar a Gen Z penchant for dark humor.

The nearest example is a milk carton tattoo on her forearm that says “100% EVIL,” which she spitefully acquired on the day her Catholic boyfriend chastised her for being insufficiently virtuous — and for having too many tattoos.

At 24, Izzy is among this family's youngest cohort, and you can get a sense of the demographic spread by moving one stool over. Here you’ll find a man named Tony-O, who hobbled in on a cane that he lays on the bar top and pats, as if it were an emotional support animal.

Tony-O smokes American Spirits and drinks Modelo with a straw. He wears a red lumberjack flannel with thick black suspenders and a wallet chain on his hip. Like so many of the Butch’s bunch, he’s a man who's been places, seen things, and who comes with contradictions.

His face lights with excitement at the topic of war. He explains how he was “rootin’-tootin’ ready to go” use his explosives license in the Vietnam conflict. Yet he’ll segue on a dime to a call for love in the vein of a peacenik. 

You might even find him at the bar jotting sentimental poems in an ostrich-skin notebook, the latest of which reads: “Everything I do/ I do it for you. There is no love/ Like my love.”

“As long as we get out here and share with each other, share love, acknowledge someone and they acknowledge you, we all feel a little better about ourselves. A little dignity goes a long way,” he said, patting his cane.

His last name, however, is apparently not among the things he shares, which in a strange way seems to foster intimacy at a place like Butch’s.

Looking around the bar at the familiar faces, Tony-O says, “I’ve known these people for years and years, and most of them don’t even know my last name. But we’re all family.”

Biker Bar? Maybe. Biker Gang? Not So Fast

Shooting pool in a haze of smoke near the jukebox, a group of men in biker duds throw back beers and belch up hearty laughter. They wear military-style boots, and leather vests with emblems, top rockers and back patches. And, yes, those are their Harleys out in the lot.

But don’t let the transportation or the duds fool you.

“This is not a biker group or biker club,” says a man known as Beeker, whose vest patch indicates he’s the “President” of this non-biker group. He is conspicuously emphatic about making this point. “We are a men’s social organization. And, yeah, we like to ride bikes.”  

There’s at least one man who will cosign their non-biker status. Tony-O, who’s had 50 different bikes over the course of his lifetime, said that, “I’ve ridden more miles backwards than any of them have forwards.”

Their organization is called Ugly Mother F***ers (UMF), a cheeky name for a cheeky bunch. They aren’t above riding motorcycles dressed in women’s tutus, and they set up a portable stripper pole at the end of their non-biker-group bike rides.

“We love to have a good time, and we do some stupid stuff, we really do,” Beeker said. “But when it comes down to it, we want to help the community and do our part. At Butch’s they welcome us, and they love doing the same thing.”

UMF has collaborated with the bar on charity rides, including their annual summer MILF ride, which ends at Butch’s and raises thousands in donations for the Casper Community Church food bank.

As to why they named it the MILF ride is anybody's guess, but given their irreverent sensibilities, you shouldn’t have to guess what MILF stands for.

Story Of The Hurricane

Butch’s Bar is the type of place where cheekiness takes on a literal meaning. 

Listen for the loud, whip-like crack, then follow the sound and you’ll find a man with a ruddy cheek, water dripping off his chin and a stunned look on his face like he just got slapped silly, because that’s exactly what happened.

They call it a hurricane shot, and it goes like this: You take a shot of liquor, then the bartender throws water in your face and slaps you like a hockey puck.

“I think it puts you in a better mood. Gets your heart racing, that sting. Sometimes you just need it,” said Brady, a 34-year-old metal-band singer who’s found himself in need of a hurricane shot on close to 30 occasions.

Not all hurricanes are created equal, however. 

Men like Brady prefer the category 5, which leaves one option, a southpaw named Cody. With straight black hair and glittering eye shadow, she doesn’t come across as the violent type. But looks can be deceiving. 

“It's a great stress reliever,” she said. “A lot of times if I’m having a day or I’m frustrated and someone wants a hurricane shot, I’m like, f*** yes! I get to take my anger out!” she said.

Sometimes patrons get less than they bargain for, namely when she slaps the actual liquor shot out of their mouths. But usually, they get more than they bargain for, and so it went for the 21-year-old birthday boy who left with a bloody nose.

“I felt really bad about that one,” said Cody, “But, hey, they want to get slapped, so I give them what they want.”

At least the bloodied-up kid took home bragging rights, which are summed up by a vinyl sticker on the fridge behind the bar: “I Survived A Hurricane Shot from Cody.”

‘Casper’s Closest Thing To A Club’ 

Lo and behold, the riffs on cheekiness just keep coming. 

The top floor is a loft, and on weekend nights it’s transformed by a popular DJ into what one patron called “Casper’s closest thing to a club.” 

By club they apparently mean a dance floor under a disco ball, where brassieres dangle from an elk mount and inhibitions are rattled loose by a bassy sound system playing mainstream rap.

In other words, it’s the place to go if you're looking to twerk. 

“Wait till about 11 o’clock and people start shaking their asses,” said Izzy.

As if on cue, in walks Butch’s resident song spinner, DJ Nike. He has a pile of silver chains on his chest and wears a matching red Yankees T-shirt and fitted Yankees hat. He stops on his way upstairs, gives Izzy a curious look and a few quiet words.

What was that about?

“I showed him my boobs last time. DJ Nike knows me by face and boobs only,” Izzy said, adding that she is among the establishment’s regular bra donors. “At one point, I think I had three bras hanging on the elk. They washed them and donated them eventually.” 

The moment underscores the unique reciprocal ease between patrons and employees, which comes across also when customers dance with the DJ behind the booth, and when the cocktail waitress takes breaks during rounds to drop it to the floor as her favorite song starts to play.

In their own way, these scenes of intimacy embody the core values of the man who started it all.  

The Man, The Myth, The Motorcycle Cop

His name is John R. Lewis, but for as long as anyone can remember they called him Butch. With broad shoulders, a high and tight flattop, blond hair and blue eyes, the name Butch suited him well.

Born in Louisiana and raised in Casper from the age of 5, he showed an early ambition for work, according to his daughter, Ashley Schmidt, who’s currently editing her father’s memoirs. 

As a 9-year-old, he got a job stacking pins at the Westridge Bowling Alley making 10 cents an hour. That came to an end when a schoolteacher discovered it was the reason he was falling asleep in class, but it wasn’t long before he was back to work at 13 at the Goose Egg Inn restaurant on Highway 220. 

The day he turned 17, he enlisted with the U.S. Marines. After completing a three-year contract, he bounced between blue collar jobs in Michigan, Nebraska and Wyoming, where he worked in the oil field and on pipelines. Somewhere along the way he lost two of his fingers.

He joined the Casper Police Department in 1964 and later moved over to the Natrona County Sheriff's Office, where he reportedly became deputy sheriff as well as the first motorcycle cop in Wyoming, patrolling on a 1969 blue-and-white Harley Davidson Sportster. He attained distinction as a fearless lawman and became a favorite subject of the press. 

One can still find news archives about the time he rescued a 25-year-old waitress who’d been kidnapped in Shoshoni and held hostage; or the time he arrested prominent Casper attorney James Fagan for “interfering with an officer in the performance of his duties.”

He wasn’t afraid to stand up to the power, and nor did he covet it. He balked when county brass solicited him to be the next sheriff.

“He flat out said, ‘I don't want to be the sheriff. Don't even consider me. I don’t want to be in the political part of it. I'm not gonna kiss anybody's ass. I'm not that person,’” said Schmidt. “He wanted to be out where he could do good in the town and the county.”

He was recruited to serve as a federal marshal during the Reagan administration, a job Schmidt said he wished he could have taken, although by then he was already knee deep in an all-new career.

Perfect For The Job

In 1977, he left the sheriff’s department for a different sort of enforcement as a silent partner at the Sage Bar in Evansville, helping reestablish order at a business with a flagging reputation, not least for a shooting that took place in the bar.

He was the perfect guy for the job.

“He didn't take bullshit from anybody. He was very large and in charge, but also the kindest person you'll ever meet,” Schmidt said.

In 1988, he opened his own bar around the corner on East Yellowstone Highway, named Happy Days, but referred to by regulars as “The Little Bar,” a reference to its shoebox max-capacity of 35. 

Here he built a loyal community that would eventually follow him to a new location under a new name — Butch’s — which this month celebrates its 20th anniversary.

It got off to a rowdy start, and a few years in, Butch himself needed reinforcements. Fortunately, they were close to home. 

Schmidt and her husband, John Schmidt, had gone into partnership on the bar with her father. They’d planned on staying behind the scenes, but that changed the night she came upon a raucous bar brawl calling to mind a scene from “Road House.”

“I don’t know what started it, I just know I walked up the stairs and it was like the whole bar was in a fight. I remember people flying over the pool table. I would say I was scared. It freaked me out,” Schmidt said, attributing the chaos to lax management. “​​I mean, the bouncers are doing shots every 30 minutes.

“The bartenders were just as drunk. Obviously, there's chaos. So, I held a big staff meeting and said, ‘Now I'm in charge, and we're gonna work together to get this bar back on track.’”

At 69, Butch decided it was time to step down and sold the bar to the Schmidts. Close to a decade later in 2024, after a years-long battle with Alzheimer’s, John R. Lewis — aka Butch — passed away. 

Even as the bar continues to evolve under the Schmidts, including with events like the Best Bloody Mary Contest along with local Ink Masters competitions, the founding patriarch’s core values live on. 

The business continues to hold fundraisers and charity events. It’s raised money for Evansville Elementary School's overdue lunch funds, breast cancer awareness and Alzheimer's awareness. It’s raised money for the families of teens killed in Casper in 2024, as well as myriad other support events for its customers who've fallen on hard times.

Butch’s stays open on holidays but not because it’s profitable; rather, it was a decision Butch made after realizing that some of his regulars had nowhere else to go.

“It was Easter, and he had to go pick up something up at the bar, and when we got there were probably 10 people in the parking lot who were headed in and he said, ‘I'm sorry we're not open today.’” she recalled.  “When he saw that these people had no other place to go, he decided to never close for another holiday after that.” 

Butch’s Bar is a place that defies labels, but Beeker of the UMF sums it up pretty well.

“I come in here and it’s like the old ‘Cheers’ show,” he said. “Everybody knows who you are, we all look out for each other. It's one big happy family.”

Zakary Sonntag can be reached at zakary@cowboystatedaily.com.