Laundry, Pizza and Ponies: One Womans Plan to Come Home

Many young UW students leave the area after graduation but eventually decide to return back home. Often the lure is to reconnect with family and, for the lucky few, return to the family ranch. Amy Goodson, a native of Sundance who graduated from UW in 2005 with a degree in criminal justice and minors in philosophy and Spanish, was no different. But she had one other compelling motivator: polo ponies, which she rides and trains.

For years, Goodson traveled the world as a polo pony trainer, wintering in south Florida. “There were 35 people for one polo team, and I was the only American, the only girl, the only native English speaker,” she says.

“The people I was surrounded by worked in industries where they have made some money,” she says. “I got great business advice from successful professional people about how to be an entrepreneur.”

In Sundance, Goodson found commercial space that housed a flower shop and a laundromat. The latter provided “passive income” to cover bills while her restaurant gained traction.

Now, Cowgirl Pizza and Laundromat has marked two years of business and is going strong.

“The laundromat part of the business plan came out of nowhere but was a match made in heaven,” Goodson says. It created its own traffic to the restaurant in part because of summer RV tourists who travel between Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park.

Goodson has had enough success that she has hired help and expanded her hours. Someday, she’d like to expand elsewhere in Wyoming.