Flying W Ranch Review: Best Chuckwagon Dinner in Colorado!
At the Flying W Ranch, you’ll get more than dinner—you’ll get an entire evening’s worth of fun and entertainment that you’ll never forget!
Located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this long standing experience has been charming audiences since the early 1950s.
Today, you’ll experience that same tradition of live music and excellent food, along with an ever expanding array of pre-dinner outdoor activities at the ranch.
My family and I knew that we wouldn’t be able to visit Colorado Springs without putting this on our agenda, and the evening was worth worth the cost. In fact, it ended up being one of our favorite things that we did there!
In the review below, you’ll learn everything you need to know to determine if an evening at the Flying W Ranch is a good fit for your trip to Colorado Springs, including tips to make your visit perfect and what to expect throughout the experience.
A look over the outdoor activities area at the Flying W Ranch
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What is the Flying W Ranch?
The Camping Kiddos and I are ready to have fun at the Flying W!
While the idea of a ranch might conjure up images of rodeos and cowboys and lassos, that’s not quite what you’re getting at the Flying W Ranch.
There is a fun, Western feel to the entire experience thanks to the fact that the property is still a working cattle ranch. However, guests don’t visit that part of the property, and, instead, spend their time in the beautiful section overlooking Colorado Springs.
For their chuckwagon dinner guests, the ranch offers up a wide variety of entertainment to ensure that every visitor enjoys the entire evening, no matter how old they are.
The Flying W Ranch experience has 3 parts: the pre-dinner activities, the chuckwagon dinner itself, and a post-dinner show and sing-a-long.
Your ticket includes all 3 parts, and you cannot purchase the parts individually.
So, plan to come early and stay late to get the full experience at the Flying W Ranch!
Our other must-do activities in Colorado Springs:
When is the supper show held during the year?
The supper shows only occur during the warmer months, usually late May to mid-October, but you’ll want to check the Flying W Ranch website for exact dates each year.
You really want to book ahead, especially if you’re coming on a weekend at the peak of summer when the tickets do sell out.
Even when we were there on a Wednesday in late May, the barn was over half full for the dinner and supper show. And that was before most schools get out and family summer travels start in earnest.
How expensive is this experience?
PIN ME!
For the 2025-2026 summer season, adult tickets start at $68 and children’s tickets start at $33.
There are discounts for military and seniors, and kids 3 and under are free as long as you’re willing to hold them during the dinner and show portions and share your food with them.
You’ll also pay a slightly higher price if you’re planning to visit on a Saturday, which is the property’s busiest day of the year—and when tickets fully sell out.
I had a bit of sticker shock when I first contemplated adding this evening to our Colorado Springs itinerary, and had somewhat convinced myself that I didn’t need to spend that money on what I thought was just a hokey dinner show.
If you’re imagining something like Dollywood Stampede or Medieval Times, it’s much, much more than that!
Overall, the experience felt much more authentic than one of those dinner shows you’ll find in Myrtle Beach or Pigeon Forge, thanks to the many pre-dinner activities, the quality of the food, and the long-standing excellence of the live show.
The pre-dinner activities are varied and offer up more entertainment than you can do in the alloted time, the dinner offerings are huge, and the live show was fantastic.
When you consider all of the pieces individually—and what you’ve probably paid for your kids to go to a farm or a nice dinner—the event pricing here is reasonable for what you get.
We ended up loving it so much that it made my list of the best family adventures in Colorado!
Is the Flying W Ranch experience good for kids?
My kids on one of their many rides on the property’s little vintage train
Yes! I took my two children, who were 10 and 7 at the time, for this evening, and they loved it so much that they wanted to come back for a second night!
Since they were older, they could participate in nearly every activity in the pre-dinner time.
The only one they couldn’t do was the axe throwing experience, but there was so much else to do that we didn’t miss that.
The kids both really enjoyed their dinner—even my picky 7 year old who once told me that his buttered toast was too spicy. (Ha.)
And the dinner show and sing-a-long kept both of them clapping and dancing the entire time, despite many of the songs being ones they weren’t familiar with.
All in all, this makes for a memorable family outing if you’re looking for something special to do with your kids in Colorado Springs.
Where is the Flying W Ranch in Colorado Springs?
For the ranch to feel so remote, it’s actually incredibly close to everything else that Colorado Springs has to offer.
From Garden of the Gods, one of the most popular attractions in the city, the property is only a 12 minute drive.
On the day we visited the ranch, we’d explored all over Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs, and the Flying W was an easy addition to our day. Since everything was so close, we didn’t need to make the trek south to our site at the Colorado Springs KOA campground in between stops on our itinerary.
If you’re looking at a map of Colorado Springs, the ranch is located to the northwest of downtown and nearly due north of Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs.
As you drive up to the property, you’ll go through neighborhoods before suddenly leaving it all behind as you arrive at the ranch.
It’s amazing how isolated the property feels despite being a 15 minute drive from much of the city!
Pre-Dinner Activities at the Ranch
Which activity do you want to try first?
On our reservation information, there were several mentions about arriving before the dinner show to experience the other activities on the property.
Given that the tickets were pushing $70 for myself and my dad, I wanted to get every bit of goodness out of the experience, so you can bet we were there well before the gates officially opened.
All of the literature noted that the gates were opened at 5 PM, but we’d overestimated the drive time from nearby Garden of the Gods and arrived onsite about 4:30 PM.
We were the 3rd car in line: people begin lining up early so we weren’t the only ones there to take advantage of the full evening program.
The cowboy working the gate opened them around 4:45 PM, allowing us to park and start our fun slightly ahead of schedule.
The first thing you’ll want to do is check in at the wooden booth at the edge of the parking lot.
Here, your reservation will be verified, and you’ll be assigned a table for dinner later in the evening. If you have a reservation, you are guaranteed room in the dinner barn, but your exact table seating is determined by when you show up and check in.
Since we were so early, we were able to nab spots at one of the front row tables for dinner, which I highly recommend.
After the check-in process, we were free to wander the grounds until the dinner bell rang around 6:30 PM.
There is truly so much to do here that it would be difficult to fit it all in even if you arrive very early like we did.
In the 90 minutes you have between the gates opening and the dinner starting, you can pick from more than a dozen activities.
If you like farm animals, you can visit with baby goats in their pen, where you can watch them jump, run, and frolic around. You can also help the pen attendant feed them if the baby goats will be still that long!
There were also several other areas where you could see turkeys, pigs, sheep, and chicken, though the baby goats were the clear winners for us.
If you and your family would rather something more interactive, there is an axe throwing station and an archery station close together.
My dad and I did the axe throwing, which was so much fun, but we were very terrible at it. The archery station was, hands-down, my kids’ absolute favorite part of the outdoor activities, and they stood in line again and again to take aim at the haybale targets.
Definitely bring sturdy shoes if you want to climb to the top of Christmas Rock!
On a nice night, you can climb up to Christmas Rock, which is a short but steep little hike.
The views you’ll get here are incredible, and even better than what you can see elsewhere on the property (which is saying something).
We did stop by the Native American weaving demonstration, but I don’t know if the weaver was having an off night or what.
She was super curt when my daughter and I went into her little cave area to watch her work and learn about her process.
She said so little in response to our couple of questions that we felt like we were intruding, and left much more quickly than we usually do at these types of educational and cultural experiences.
However, a high point of our time before dinner included another of the Native American demonstrations, where a Sweetwater Plains family did a traditional dance demonstration and lesson.
My children were fascinated by their colorful outfits and intricate footwork, and they really enjoyed going out at the end of the demonstration to try out a few steps with one of the dancers.
This demonstration is located in the amphitheatre, which is close to the dinner barn, making it the perfect transition into the next part of your evening.
Time for Dinner
After we’d spend an hour and a half running around and exploring the ranch, we were all ready to tuck into a hearty supper.
Plates piled high with hearty favorites
Around 6:20 PM, the line started to form near the main barn area for dinner. It honestly doesn’t matter if you wait in line or not as the tables were already assigned early in the day, but people did it anyway.
Once the dinner bell rings and the barn doors open, you’ll find your table and settle in.
You’ll sit at long picnic tables with everyone else who was assigned to your table. Be prepared to make new friends since you won’t get your own individual space.
We were seated with 2 couples, one of whom lived in Colorado Springs and the other who was visiting. They were super nice, and it was fun to make some new friends over dinner.
There was an announcement on how we should get our food, and then we lined up to go through the food line.
While it’s not a buffet, you are welcome to go back through the line again once everyone has been through.
But, I didn’t feel the need to since I got so much food the first time!
You’re given a large metal tray that you take down the line, choosing as many of the available options as you’d like. Get it all, or take a few of the dishes if you’d like.
If you’re traveling with a child who can’t easily hold a tray on his or her own, you can request one of the servers to assist. This server will be your child’s runner, and will ensure that he or she gets meal items and drinks.
This was a huge help to me since I would otherwise have to balance my own tray with my 7 year old’s and supervising my 10 year old.
As you go through the line, you can choose from a wide array of hearty items including brisket, roasted chicken, a baked potato, baked beans, and applesauce.
If you’d like butter or sour cream for your potato, that is served on the side. You can also get a homestyle biscuit with butter or jam.
For dessert, there is a spice cake that reminded me of soft, warm gingerbread. I only got to have a few bites because I was so full at that point.
My older child tried everything and liked it all. She really loved the spice cake and the brisket.
My younger, pickier kid liked the chicken, baked potato and applesauce. He also had 2 biscuits with butter. He proclaimed the spice cake too spicy.
Dinner also comes with unlimited water, tea, or lemonade.
Cowboy Sing-a-Long
After about an hour—which flies by, honestly—the stage show starts.
While there were a few people still finishing up their meals and drinks, nearly everyone had moved onto chatting with the others at their table at this point.
I think if the show started any sooner, dinner would feel rushed, but if it started any later, you might feel as if there was too much dead space after the meal was largely over.
The show is announced, so that people can use the restroom or grab a final glass of water, and starts in earnest when the lights go down.
The Flying W Wranglers mid-show
For the next hour, you’re entertained by a quintet of talented musicians who encourage the audience to participate with clapping, dancing, and singing.
The band, officially called the Flying W Wranglers, is the second longest running Western band in history, and it has performed in one version or another since the early 1950s!
Of course, none of the current members were there from the beginning, but some of the musicians throughout the show’s history have stayed with the troupe for years.
The night that we were there happened to be the same night one of the original cowboy singers was in town, and he even got on stage to sing a little.
The group does a mixture of modern songs and oldies with a few surprises thrown in, like a cowboy version of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” that got mixed into one of the songs.
The playlist is an excellent combination of nostalgia and family fun, and the show stays dynamic by having the 5 men switch off as lead singer. They play their instruments live, too, so the entire thing feels polished with room for some improv.
Behind the quintet is a full color screen that plays videos and images that tie into each song’s themes and lyrics. It’s a fun addition that helps the entire show feel more modern than its singing cowboy roots might belie.
Final Thoughts on Visiting the Flying W Ranch
The Flying W’s barn lit up after the show
Despite my initial sticker shock at paying well over $100 for 3 tickets, I now am a firm believer that this might be the best evening entertainment in Colorado Springs, and that it is worth every penny.
There truly is something here for every visitor from age 1 to 100, and you can stay as busy throughout as you want (or just sit back and relax on the barn porch!).
As a family run ranch, the Flying W feels welcoming: the experience has a small enough scope to feel manageable, but remains an excellent value for the money.
I love that all aspects of the West have been captured here with the Native American demonstrations, the nostalgic cowboy band, and the many outdoor activities during the pre-dinner time.
Ultimately, this chuckwagon dinner and outdoor experience was one of the highlights of our time in Colorado Springs, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a unique, long-standing tradition with some cowboy flair.
