Gillette’s Big Lost Meadery expands into Sioux Falls with new restaurant, taproom

GILLETTE, Wyo. — Big Lost Meadery founder Sam Clikeman not only has a new brewery and restaurant in Sioux Falls, but also a home there.

Sam, who started Big Lost Meadery in Gillette just over a decade ago, has opened the company’s first location outside of its home base in a new, purpose-built facility on picturesque Lake Lorraine. The building includes the restaurant Ranch & Roost, which he runs with Aaron Cannon.

In the process, Sam decided to move to Sioux Falls and run the new restaurant, brewery and taproom there as his business partner operates in Gillette.

The move will also allow the company to expand its mead-making operations, which will stay in Gillette. The restaurant and taproom will serve beer made on site at the brewery, he said.

The expansion comes after more than two years of research and planning.

“We started looking all around the country trying to figure out where we wanted to go,” he said. “We spent a lot of time in Dallas and in Tampa, just all over the place trying to find the right spot.”

They narrowed it down to Dallas, Tampa, Nashville, Des Moines and Sioux Falls, eventually landing on the last of these.

Market aspects such as land prices, business climate, taxes and labor availability were evaluated during the process.

“Sioux Falls kept rising to the top, and we were able to find a real good piece of land and build up from scratch,” he said. “It’s a perfect fit.”

The city has a bustling hospitality industry, and claims more restaurants per capita than any other metro area in the U.S., he said.

Sam originally started experimenting with mead making in his garage. The ancient process starts with honey that is fermented with yeast and water, and often includes variations using fruits and spices for added flavors. The process is believed to be one of the oldest brewing traditions and dates back thousands of years.

The Big Lost Meadery distribution has expanded across the world over the past few years. “We do direct-to-household in 42 states, we distribute in six and we also export to Taiwan and Hong Kong,” Sam said.

“The goal was always production and distribution,” he said. “We want to print ‘made in Wyoming’ on as many labels as we can across the United States.”

Sam said teaming up with the Ranch & Roost restaurant business has helped their expansion goals. “Between the two of us, we figured we could work together on this new concept and see if we can put this out somewhere that’s not just Wyoming,” he said. “It’s been a relatively recent thing, but it’s been highly successful so far.”

The opportunity to construct their own building and design rather than shoehorn into an older building was an added benefit of the expansion. “We have a big patio that overlooks the lake, and we were able to build the brewery and restaurant exactly the way we wanted it,” he said.

“Sioux Falls is really a testing ground of the concept outside of our hometown,” he said. “If Sioux Falls works, the plan is to build some more of these around the U.S.”

In addition, the market for their core product, mead, continues to be a main focus.

“We’re doing our damnedest to spread Wyoming,” he said.