Red Garter Saloon — Restaurant in Keystone

Nestled on the eastside of Winter Street, the main street through town and on the doorstep of Mt. Rushmore, this is one of the many tourist trap type businesses in Keystone. Although I usually hate these places, their cheap t-shirts, their poor service and their watered down drinks, this one was different. Upon entering the saloon through the swinging western doors, you're teleported back into a somewhat realistic saloon in the 1870's. The walls are decorated with authentic antiques, or fantastic replicas, and a lot of red colors reminding one of a bawdy cathouse. There's a couple of actors in cowboy regalia that put on a 20 minute show of Wild Bill Hickok and one of his many shootouts, and you only need to order a drink. The participants are well dressed and rehearsed, and even comical at times, and the 6'5" Hickok has real pistol twirling skills. The drinks are excellent and well made, and the restaurant next door serves very good food at reasonable prices. Here's the real rub, the staff is REALLY PERFORMING SUPERIOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. Our waitress, a shorter young lady was obsessed with staying in touch with us, and her footsteps were so fast. I couldn't help thinking she was the best waitress we had experienced in a very long time, and these days that is becoming rare. The hosts were two younger men in their 30's, and their attentiveness to turning their tables and getting people seated as fast as possible was impressive. I'm not going to say the chicken strips or fish and chips my boys ate were the best ever, or even the extra large taco salad I ordered, but my wife and I agreed the food far above average, and the total experience really fantastic.

Make this a stop on your vacation, and see the Saloon show as well. It's totally worth it, and really low cost considering...

A horrible experience.

THE RED GARTER SALOON Soured our day! Thirty-six years ago we honeymooned in The Black Hills and had a Red Garter drink. This was supposed to be a celebration.

Embarrassed and disappointed.

The philosophy here is that the customer is NOT always right-- -even when the sign says I keep the glass -the waitress doesn't clarify there are two different Bloody Marys -the waitress doesn't ask which I want -the manager is rude and doesn't make it right--Not even for a stupid glass! -the manager preferred being RIGHT even though she made the customer (me) feel wrong. -the manager demonstrated poor management and people skills.

WHO WOULD KNOW when you order a Bloody Mary at The Red Garter Saloon that it IS NOT A Red Garter Bloody Mary!? The waitress didn't ask. The manager didn't make it right.

Who is the owner and General Manager of The Red Garter Saloon? I am certain they are unaware of the poor management and waitress/bartender skills of...

Food was great and service was great. Looking around the room there were great historic paintings and pieces. The bison steak was ok but the bison ribs with their sauce was very tender and tasty. One of the better root beers-sasperilla. The bison stew tasted like a dinty Moore stew.

One thing that isn’t obvious from these reviews and the store front is that the saloon and the ruby house are together. The saloon does drink while the house does the food. To get food enter at Ruby house then you can order either. The saloon is just for drinks.

Awesome place. My only complaint was the flies. We spent a decent portion of our meal shooing the flies away. If the service, atmosphere, and food weren’t so good this would have been more of an issue but there were alot of flies. Hopefully a...