The 15 Best Spots To Eat And Drink In South Dakota's Black Hills

As the largest city and primary urban hub in western South Dakota, Rapid City is rife with unique restaurants, bars, and cafés worth a stopover. Chief among them is Vertex Sky Bar, perched atop downtown's historic Hotel Alex Johnson. The bi-level rooftop lounge is one of the best hotel restaurants in the U.S., boasting panoramic views of the city and a glimpse of the Black Hills in the distance.

Outfitted with indoor-outdoor seating and crackling fire pits, Vertex Sky Bar features food and cocktails that are just as stunning as the vistas. The menu emphasizes locally sourced ingredients with shareable plates that include elk ravioli, crispy walleye fingers with Sriracha tartar sauce, and bison osso bucco burly enough for the chilliest South Dakota evenings. Along with masterfully mixed classic cocktails, seasonal drinks include summery sips like a boozy huckleberry lemonade. And, in case the views weren't entertaining enough, there's a live vinyl DJ several nights each week.

An authentic taste of Tokyo nestled in the heart of downtown Rapid City, Bokujo Ramen is a hip and intimate noodle den open for brunch and dinner, blending local ingredients with Japanese traditions — stewing it all together in fragrant, soul-stirring broth. The word "Bokujo" translates to "pasture" in Japanese (via WordHippo), and that certainly fits the restaurant's focus on sourcing ingredients from local farms and purveyors like Wall Meats, Cedar Creek Gardens, and Black Hills Mushrooms. The result is a South Dakota-meets-Japan menu of bao buns, dumplings, and hearty noodle bowls.

Along with fun rotating specials like turkey buns adorned with cranberry mayo, arugula, and fried onions, the playful ramen restaurant features BLT bao, oxtail gyoza, and plant-based BBQ jackfruit buns. Naturally, brothy noodles are the star, with unique options like bison brisket ramen, spicy miso with wood ear mushrooms, and chilled veggie shoyu with mushrooms, cabbage, corn, soy sauce, eggs, and scallions. Come brunch, B.E.C. (bacon, egg, and cheese) buns and sake Bloody Marys join the party.

Saloons are a dime a dozen in Deadwood, but none can hold a candle to the quirky singularity of Saloon No. 10. It's a sprawling bar where the floors are still covered in sawdust, taxidermy and black-and-white photos cram every inch of the wooden walls, and re-enactments of Wild West-style shootouts take place right outside the front door. The bar is also home to the chair that Wild Bill Hickok was sitting in when he was shot dead (via Deadwood.com), and it's the kind of hyper-specific décor that should clue you in to the sheer originality of Deadwood's most immersive watering hole.

The main floor of the saloon, anchored by a huge bar toward the front and outfitted with red vinyl booths and chairs, is the American Whiskey Bar, boasting a bevy of spirits and craft beers to choose from. The whiskey and bourbon selection is dizzying, with more than 150 bottles on supply, and the rotating beer list emphasizes local Black Hills breweries on draft, like Cadillac Couch lagers from Sawyer Brewing Co. in Spearfish and Riley's Irish Red Ale from Dakota Point Brewing in Rapid City.

Located in an old service station that now doubles as an artful glass blowing studio, Pump House at Mind Blown Studio is one of the more offbeat places to order coffee and breakfast in the Black Hills. The funky, colorful place, lined with vibrant glass pieces and filled to the brim with eccentric knickknacks, is open morning through early evening for all your fresh brew needs — be it coffee or beer — and a curated selection of sandwiches and pastries.

The indoor-outdoor café (garage doors open up to an umbrella-shaded patio) is a few blocks away from Deadwood's Main Street, offering a quieter dining nook and the unique opportunity to watch glass blowing in action while savoring its offerings. The coffee is locally roasted, and morning snacks include pastries, bagels, and bagel sandwiches filled with eggs and sausage. Come afternoon, beer and wine join the roster for a leisurely alternative to the clamorous saloons downtown.

When visiting an all-American destination like the Black Hills, it only makes sense to treat yourself to some all-American sweets at one of the most charming bake shops in the region. Purple Pie Place scratches that itch with a lineup of fresh fruit pies, offering a wholesome slice of Americana a la mode in the town of Custer.

As the name implies, the cute cottage-like café is housed in an all-purple building that looks like something out of a fairy tale. Inside, the bakeshop offers a surprisingly lengthy menu of savory sandwiches, chicken pot pie, mac & cheese, and soups, but what you're really here for is dessert. Along with sundaes and floats, Purple Pie Place specializes in whole pies and pies by the slice in fruit-centric flavors like rhubarb, peach, cherry, blueberry, apple, and blackberry. For something spicier, try the raspberry-rhubarb-jalapeño, and mellow out that heat with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Beer and whiskey aren't the only boozy options in the Black Hills. At Prairie Berry Winery, a vast winery, tasting room, and restaurant in Hill City, the family-run business has grown exponentially since its 1999 debut, accruing hundreds of industry awards and expanding its wine selection to include a plethora of grape varietals and different fruits.

Helmed by the same owners of next-door Miner Brewing Co., Prairie Berry is a massive mecca for oenophiles, offering a retail section, tastings, and tables for drinking and dining on-site. Wines include Syrah rosé, a Concord grape wine named after local vigilante Calamity Jane, a cherry-crab apple wine, and a pear wine named Gold Digger. Customers are welcome to order flights so they can taste their way through the numerous options. They're best when paired with a snack or two off the kitchen menu, which includes charcuterie and cheese boards, sandwiches, soups, salads, and a chocolate torte.

Throughout western South Dakota, and especially in the Black Hills, Native American history and heritage are on full display. It's evident in the area museums, memorials, and monuments, and in the cuisine. Nowhere is this more prominent than the Crazy Horse Memorial, the long-in-the-works mountain carving of Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, whose likeness is steadily taking shape on private land near Custer State Park (via Black Hills Visitor). Along with extensive historical displays in the visitor center, Native American context can be experienced at the memorial's full-service restaurant, Laughing Water, which serves up Indigenous cuisine with a prime view of the monument itself.

The restaurant's serene setting is an opportunity to sample local recipes and learn about dishes like wojapi (a Native American berry sauce, per A Bakers House), fry bread, and tatanka stew, a chili-like bowlful of Black Hills buffalo, carrots, sweet peas, onions, and potatoes. A signature dish here is the Native American taco, which piles fluffy fry bread with taco meat, refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, salsa, and sour cream. For something sweet, the same fry bread can be paired with wojapi, cinnamon, or honey.

Nestled in the forest of Custer State Park and just up the hill from picture-perfect Sylvan Lake (a popular destination for hiking and water sports), Sylvan Lake Lodge is an idyllic retreat perched at the apex of a meandering scenic roadway. Sylvan Lake Lodge Dining has fast-casual and full-service food options that are just as cozy as the lodging. Here you'll find local specialties served up in an upscale space bedecked with hardwood floors and a stone fireplace.

The restaurant specializes in locally sourced American fare, but with rigorously local ingredients that sometimes skew into wilder terrain like the crostini with rabbit-rattlesnake sausage and smoked gorgonzola mousse or buffalo chislic (blackened and fried buffalo sirloin trips with chipotle hollandaise and balsamic). You can also get your buffalo in burger form or as a buffalo tips entrée with mushroom-barley risotto, a sunny-side egg, and more of that redolent chipotle hollandaise. For drinks, cocktails offer newfangled takes on the classics, beers lean heavily on local breweries, and the wine list is robust.