Wyoming
Eating Wyoming: Casper's Pho Saigon Has Loyal Following For Its…
CASPER — Customers say the little family restaurant on the corner of East 12th and South Beverly streets may be nearly 8,200 miles from Vietnam, but serves up some seriously legit pho, or rice noodle soup.
Just ask Anna Tran who, with companion Jim Thompson, were checking out Pho Saigon Vietnamese Restaurant for the first time on a recent afternoon.
“I usually don’t like to go out for pho. I think most restaurants don’t make it very well, and so far this is excellent. I say that truthfully,” said Tran, who recently moved to Casper. “I usually don’t like to order pho when I go out to Vietnamese restaurants.”
“And she was born in Vietnam,” Thompson interjected. “Her parents only speak Vietnamese, that’s what they cook at home a lot. She is very familiar with this.”
The small, 10-table eatery in the Beverly Plaza offers traditional Vietnamese fare from a family that arrived in Wyoming from Vietnam in 2003.
Manager Hieu Le, the only family member who speaks English, said staff includes his father, mother and his wife, Thuy.
They’ve been serving up their family recipes since Jan. 1, 2014, Le said.
Pho Specialty
The specialty is the pho, pronounced as fuh, soup with bone broth, rice noodles and thin slices of meat. It’s garnished with spices, fresh herbs, onions, while bean sprouts, lime, hot peppers and various hot sauces that can be added for taste.
Le and most others in the culinary industry believe the dish began in Saigon, but its true origin isn’t known for sure.
Pho Saigon offers six varieties of the soup that, depending on the selection, includes either rare steak, meatballs, chicken, shrimp or a combination. The soup is served in a big bowl steamy hot with plenty of long rice noodles. A large spoon, chopsticks and fork are the utensils needed to conquer it.
Kisa King, visiting Casper from Oklahoma, uses chopsticks.
She said whenever she visits the Oil City she always goes to the restaurant.
“It’s the best food, it has the best flavor,” she said. “Other places I’ve tried in Oklahoma are no match for it. My favorite is … the meatball pho and the spring rolls.”
The spring rolls come in rice paper with lettuce, shrimp, and “a really good peanut sauce,” she said.
Her companion, Daniel Groom, characterized the food as “good” and “something different than burgers and quesadillas.”
Le said in addition to the menu, which lists the restaurant’s dishes in Vietnamese names, he created a companion photo book that shows each dish, so people know exactly what they are ordering.
-
Anna Tran and Jim Thompson were checking out Pho Saigon for the first time. Tran said the pho soup was “legit” and the broth better than what she can make. She grew up in a Vietnamese family. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) -
Cowboy State Daily recently tried the Pho Ga dish at Pho Saigon. The pho soups come with hot broth seasoned with spices and herbs filled with rice noodles and a side of bean sprouts, lime and hot peppers that can be added to the soup as desired. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) -
Emma Plett and Nate Holloway ordered takeout from Pho Saigon. Hollway, of Laramie, said he always tries to stop at the restaurant when he is in town. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) -
Pho Saigon has seating for just more than 20 people with individual tables. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) -
Pho Saigon Manager Hieu Le said in his spare time he likes to make clay figurines and create paintings. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) -
Pho Saigon Manager Hieu Le has painted all of the poster-like artwork that covers the walls at Pho Saigon. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Egg Rolls, Rice Noodle Bowls And More
In addition to the pho, the restaurant offers egg rolls, a selection of rice noodle bowls with different meat and vegetable selections such as bun tom, a dish that includes noodles, shrimp, vegetables and a lime chili fish sauce.
There are also five lo mein dishes with stir-fried noodles, vegetables, and one’s selection of meat. The menu also includes five different rice platters such as com suon dai han, rice and barbecued beef with vegetables in their version.
Laramie’s Nate Holloway was visiting Casper with his girlfriend, Emma Plett, and ordered some takeout.
“I usually go for lo mein, it’s a stir-fried soft noodle with veggies and whatever meat you like,” he said. “This is actually the first Vietnamese restaurant I came to when I was younger and lived in town.”
In addition to the food, the drink menu includes a variety of milk teas and tasty fruit flavored ice teas.
Le said from time to time the restaurant will offer specials that he advertises on Facebook.
Cowboy State Daily’s visit included a big bowl of pho with chicken and some peach iced tea.
Core Following
After 10 years in business, Le said the restaurant has developed a relationship with a core group of customers. A family atmosphere is the goal.
“They have supported us. And sometimes we take care of them, too,” he said. “It’s not about the money we want from customer, we want them to have a good time here and know that it’s a place that feels like home.”
The restaurant interior includes colorful plastic plants that resemble the plants and fruit that can be found in Southeast Asia. On the walls are distinctive poster-sized paintings Le has created in his off time. He also has several hand-crafted clay figurines he makes for sale.
“When I am not working, that is my hobby,” he said. “I didn’t take any art classes, that is just me and me alone.”
The family was able to make their way to Casper thanks to an aunt who married a World War II veteran stationed in Vietnam during that war. She came to the country in the early 1950s.
In Vietnam, Le said his family moved from place to place until they, like many other immigrants, came to America for a better life.
“Over there the poverty is really bad. You eat what you make,” he said.
Le said his mother and father generally run the restaurant’s kitchen and his wife helps as a waitress. He fills in and does whatever is needed. They make enough for a living, but not enough quite yet to hire help.
They just continue to trust the restaurant for their future.
Pho Saigon is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“It’s all about having a good time, have a good meal, you come happy and you leave happy,” Le said.
Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com
-
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Jayesh Patil via Google) -
Casper may be 8,200 miles from Vietnam, but Pho Saigon is as legit as it gets. (Pho Saigon via Facebook) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Kyle Green via Google) -
Casper may be 8,200 miles from Vietnam, but Pho Saigon is as legit as it gets. (Pho Saigon via Facebook) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Joshua Baughcum via Google) -
Casper may be 8,200 miles from Vietnam, but Pho Saigon is as legit as it gets. (Pho Saigon via Facebook) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (John Hettgar via Google) -
Casper may be 8,200 miles from Vietnam, but Pho Saigon is as legit as it gets. (Pho Saigon via Facebook) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Grace Woolfolk via Google) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Daniel Garcia via Google) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Brian Bassett via Google) -
Customers rave about the authentic food at Pho Saigon in Casper, Wyoming. (Aaron Kaylor via Google)
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
If the Wyoming House and Senate approve its budget changes, then the chambers’ Joint Conference Committee will have helped the University of Wyoming dodge a $40 million cut, while also limiting the Wyoming Business Council to one year’s funding instead of the standard two.
The Joint Conference Committee adopted numerous changes to the state’s two-year budget draft, but didn’t formally advance the document to the House and Senate chambers. The committee meets again Monday and may do so at that time.
Then, the House and Senate can vote on whether to adopt that draft by a simple majority.
First, UW
Starting in January, the Joint Appropriations Committee majority had sought to deny around $20 million in exception requests the University of Wyoming made, while imposing a $40 million cut to the university’s block grant.
That’s about 10% of the state’s grant to UW but a lesser proportion of the school’s overall operating budget.
The Senate sought to restore the $60 million.
The House sought to keep the denials and cuts, ultimately settling on a bargain to cut $20 million, and hinge UW’s retention of the remaining $20 million on its finding and reporting $5 million in savings.
The Joint Conference Committee the House and Senate sent into a Friday meeting to negotiate those two stances chose to fund UW “fully,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily in the state Capitol after the meeting.
But, $10 million of UW’s $40 million block grant won’t reach it until the school charts a “road map” of how it could save $5 million, and reports that to the Joint Appropriations Committee, she added.
“A healthy exercise, I think, for them to participate in, while the Legislature still allows them to receive full grant funding,” Nethercott said.
“I’m hopeful people feel confident the University is fully funded,” she continued, as it’s “on the brink of receiving a new president, having the resources he or she may need to continue to steer the leadership of the University, our state’s flagship school into the future.”
Hours earlier in a press conference, House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, said the Legislature has been clear that UW should avoid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI programming, and that it’s the position of the House majority that the school should tailor its programming to Wyoming’s true business needs – so UW graduates will stay in the state.
Within an earlier draft of the budget sat a footnote blocking money for Wyoming Public Media — a publicly funded media and radio entity funded through UW’s budget.
That footnote is gone from the JCC’s draft, said Nethercott.
Wyoming Business Council
The Wyoming Business Council is set to receive roughly $14 million, confined to one year, for its internal operations, said Nethercott.
“Both chambers have decided to only fund the operations,” Nethercott said, “not all the grant programs.”
She said that’s to compel the Legislature to revisit the concerns it has with the agency, then return in the 2027 legislative session with a vision for its future.
The Business Ready Communities program is “eliminated,” she said.
JCC member Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, elaborated further.
Of the appropriation, $12 million is from the state’s checking account, plus the state is authorizing WBC to use $157,787 in federal funds and nearly $1 million from other sources.
“We’re going to take it up as an interim topic in appropriations (committee) and how to rebuild it and make it work the way we think it should work,” said Pendergraft. But the JCC opted to fund the Small Business Development Center for two years, along with Economic Diversification Division for Manufacturing Works, and the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, Pendergraft noted, pointing to that language on his draft budget sheet.
Pendergraft made headlines last year by saying he wanted to eliminate the Wyoming Business Council altogether.
But Nethercott told the Senate earlier this month, legislators have complained of that agency her entire nine-year tenure.
She attributed this to what she called communications shortfalls that may not be intentional. She cosponsored a now-stalled bill this year that had sought to adopt a task force to evaluate WBC.
The Wyoming Business Council’s functions range from less controversial, like helping communities build infrastructure, to more controversial, like awarding tax-funded grants to certain businesses on a competitive application process.
Wyoming Public Television
Wyoming Public Television, which is not the same as Wyoming Public Media, is slated to receive the $3 million it lost when Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Nethercott said.
It will also receive its usual $3 million from Wyoming.
The entity will not receive another $3 million it had sought to upgrade its emergency-alert towers, said Nethercott, “because we received information from them… they have another source to pay for the replacement and maintenance of the towers.”
Like the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Public TV’s functions range from less controversial to more controversial.
The entity operates, maintains and staffs emergency alert towers throughout Wyoming.
Wyoming Public TV also produces entertainment and informational movies. Its state grants run through the community colleges’ budget.
State Employees
Nethercott noted that the JCC advanced to both chambers an agreement to pay $111 million from the state’s checking account to give state employees raises.
Those raises would bring them to 2024 market values for their work, she noted.
Because that money is coming from the state’s checking account, or “general fund,” and not its severance tax pool as the House had envisioned, then $111 million won’t impact the $105 million investment another still-viable bill seeking to build an “energy dominance fund” envisions.
That bill, sponsored by Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, seeks to lend to large energy-sector projects.
Biteman told Cowboy State Daily in an interview days before the session convened that its purpose is to counteract “green” compacts investors have adopted, and which have bottlenecked energy projects.
Wyoming’s executive branch is currently suing BlackRock and other investors on that same assertion.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
Read More Girls Basketball News from WyoPreps
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-25-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Standings 2-23-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 10 Scores 2026
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-18-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 9 Scores 2026
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-11-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 8 Scores 2026
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-4-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 7 Scores 2026
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-28-26
Nominate A Basketball Player for the WyoPreps Athlete of the Week Honor
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-21-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 5 Scores 2026
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-14-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 4 Scores 2025-26
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 1-7-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 3 Scores 2025-26
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-24-25
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 2 Scores 2025-26
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-17-25
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26
CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026
4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
Highlights: Tri-West at Cardinal Ritter; February 27, 2026
As the NFL combine winds down, all eyes shift to Pittsburgh for the league’s next showcase event
Augusta 911 call center earns statewide honor
DC Public Health to begin daily testing of Potomac, Anacostia rivers for E. coli
If You Could Put Any Cleveland Baseball Player from the Past on the 2026 Team, Who Would it Be?
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
ICE blasts Washington mayor over directive restricting immigration enforcement
Did the EU bypass Hungary’s veto on Ukraine’s €90 billion loan?
How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media
Where Iran’s ballistic missiles can reach — and how close they are to the US
Has India’s influence in Afghanistan grown under the Taliban?
-
World2 days agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Massachusetts3 days agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Montana1 week ago2026 MHSA Montana Wrestling State Championship Brackets And Results – FloWrestling
-
Louisiana5 days agoWildfire near Gum Swamp Road in Livingston Parish now under control; more than 200 acres burned
-
Denver, CO2 days ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Technology7 days agoYouTube TV billing scam emails are hitting inboxes
-
Technology7 days agoStellantis is in a crisis of its own making
-
Politics7 days agoOpenAI didn’t contact police despite employees flagging mass shooter’s concerning chatbot interactions: REPORT