Rapid City Restaurant Guide
 Asian RestaurantsWhat was it, about 20 years ago? That if you wanted Chinese food in Rapid City, you had just about one choice, and that was the Great Wall on E. North Street. Well, times have changed — Asian food hit the mainstream a long time ago, and local restaurateurs have since increased the supply of good Asian cuisine to meet that demand. We’re still waiting for our first swanky Pan-Asian bistro, but until then, we’ll enjoy these local favorites. |
 Breakfast RestaurantsIt’s the most important meal of the day, you know. Didn’t you listen to your mother? You’ve got many great options in Rapid City for breakfast, from homestyle-cookin’ to the lattes-and-pastries set to old-school donut shops. Any of these local favorites are a great choice to fuel up before starting your day. |
 Dessert RestaurantsLife is short — don’t skip dessert. Dairy Queens and Coldstones aside, very fewof these Rapid City joints advertise themselves as solely dessert places, but all have a great array of sweetness at the back of the menu to top off your meal. |
 Fine Dining RestaurantsSo, Mr. Schmancy Pants, we hear you’re looking for a place to eat where the napkins are made of actual cloth, the silverware is made of real metal and the plates actually shatter into pieces when the dishwashers drop them in the back? Well, look no further. The Black Hills may not be a worldwide destination for haute cuisine (yet!), but we’ve got our share of fine dining haunts that stand up nicely against any of the big-city restaurants that annoying friend of yours from Denver or the Twin Cities is always constantly bringing up. Check our list, take ‘em out to dinner and show them what’s what. |
 Italian RestaurantsWe may not be terribly authentic in our Eye-talian dialect here in Rapid City, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy great Italian food. And we’ve got a lot more choices now than we did even five short years ago. Fortunately, unlike in some larger cities, we need not traipse into a mob-controlled neighborhood into a mob-controlled mob hangout in order to access the best Italian grub in town. Capisci, paesan? |
 Kid-Friendly RestaurantsIf you have kids, especially small ones, there are basically two questions you have in mind when you’re choosing a restaurant: a) Is this place gonna make my life easier by having crayons on the tables and a tricked-out kids menu with chicken fingers and grilled cheese and corn dogs, etc.?; and b) If my kids start using their outside voices, is everyone gonna stare daggers at us until we leave? For our list of restaurants that answer “yes” to A and “no” to B, click here. |
 Mexican RestaurantsIs there any ethnic food so beloved as Mexican food? We think it probably overtook Italian food a few years back for top billing in the “ethnic food that’s now so domestic that we almost consider it just another branch of American food” category. Rapid City and the Hills have pulled a total 180 over the last decade with respect to Mexican food. Ten years ago, we were a wasteland of Taco Bells and not much else; today, however, we’ve got a variety of authentic eateries that an area our size can’t help but be proud of. |
 Middle Eastern RestaurantsWe ain’t got many, but we’ve got a couple. OK, we’ve got one, pretty much. And we’re gonna throw the Indian restaurants in here to flesh out the category — hope you don’t mind. |
 Pizza RestaurantsPizza, as they say, is pretty good even when it’s bad. It’s hard to mess up pizza. But there are all kinds of different ways to make it unique, from the super-thin crusts over at Piesano’s to the exotic ingredients at Boston’s to the oven-fired gems at Stonewall’s to the $5 budget saver at Little Caesar’s. Here’s our rundown of the area’s pizza joints. |
 Sandwich/Burger RestaurantsSouth Dakota is beef country, so if you’re gonna serve burgers here, you damn well better bring your A game to the table or expect to have a table full of hearty Midwesterners laughing their tails off at your paltry efforts. That said, it’s good to know that excellent burgers abound in the Black Hills, even in places that aren’t well-known for them. |
 Steak RestaurantsOK, everything we just said above about burgers goes triple for steaks. Not only do we eat steak and know steak in South Dakota, we actually raise steaks. You can’t drive a mile outside of town in any direction without seeing a few delectable steaks-to-be mooing in the pasture. So when you’re ready to eat one, be sure to check this list of the area’s best steakhouses. |
 Sushi RestaurantsOK, OK — our little corner of the world will probably never become a hotbed of sushi, but hey, at least we’re on the map. Four years ago, our sushi options were zip, zilch, nothing. Today, we’ve got a entire handful of sushi restaurants in Rapid City alone. Heck, we’ve even got a sushi restaurant in Black Hawk — tell us you would’ve bet on that back in 2003! |
 Vegetarian RestaurantsOk, so we’re overstating the case a little bit here — there are no true, vegetarian-only restaurants in Rapid City (or the Hills, that we know of, but correct us if we’re wrong). But there are tons of places where vegetarians and even vegans can sit down and eat a meal agreeable with their spiritual beliefs, sensitive gastrointestinal tract or whatever reason it is that drives them to avoid animal flesh. |
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Would like to include thirsty’s in your restaurant guide.
family friendly, NON SMOKING, great food, live music.
819 Main St. Rapid City
343-3104