3 Best Restaurants in Custer State Park, The Southern Black Hills

The restaurant at Legion Lake Lodge is an affordable, faster-food option. You can sit down by the floor-to-ceiling windows inside and enjoy an appetizer, salad, sandwich, or burger, or you can order from the picnic menu and take your food to go. There are numerous places to sit outside at the lodge and alongside Legion Lake.

Located in the historic Game Lodge where President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge lived for nearly three months on a 1927 vacation, the Game Lodge restaurant has the biggest dining capacity of any restaurant in the park. There are multiple seating areas ranging from basic to elegant to outdoors (be sure to inquire about the options). Breakfast and lunch buffets are available, and the menu includes a wide range of salads, burgers, and entrees, with a focus on local ingredients, including bison meat.

There's no better setting for dining in Custer State Park than the Sylvan Lake Lodge, which is perched on a hillside above beautiful Sylvan Lake. The dining area has vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, large windows, and a stone veranda. Like other restaurants in the park, the menu includes a selection of salads, sandwiches, burgers, and locally inspired entrees featuring bison meat and other specialties.