Aug. 23, 2023

A couple who started as Black Hills resort owners have expanded into a business featuring handmade work and local art.

Ashleigh and Jeremy Roemen own the Bearded Buffalo Trading Co. near Custer and will be making a trip east to sell at Saturday’s 605 Made Night Market.

“We were Sioux Falls natives that were always headed west,” Ashleigh Roemen said. “We have four young kids, and we couldn’t get enough of the Hills.”

They started by looking for a cabin in the Black Hills in 2020 so they could start an Airbnb.

“We ended up buying a resort,” Roemen said.

The couple recently sold that property and are building a new resort — along with a handmade business.

The inspiration for Bearded Buffalo came from the Roemen family’s love for wildlife and the buffalo in South Dakota.

“We wanted to go away from your typical T-shirt store that you’d see around here,” Roemen said. “We wanted to be unique and individual, so we sell our own handmade items or feature other artists’ work at our store.”

The owners create flannel shirts, T-shirts, other apparel, hats, coffee mugs and tumblers at Bearded Buffalo Trading Co., and support South Dakota artists by selling their handmade work in the store.

“We recently hired the Dahl brothers to make us a 30-foot wooden bison on our property — Bo,” Roemen said. “We want anybody and everyone to come to take a picture with Bo.”

In the store, they sell other work from Dahl’s Chainsaw Art: wooden bears for the yard, wooden welcome signs and miniature bison similar to Bo.

The Bearded Buffalo Trading Co. will continue to focus on featuring homemade items that promote South Dakota and the Black Hills, the couple said.

“I am looking forward to seeing all the creativity coming out of each booth at 605 Made. I’d especially love to see what other people have done that features our state and local areas,” Roemen said. “We’re all about how life is great in the Black Hills or life is better on the trail.”

The Roemens’ new resort outside of Custer is on track to open next year.

It will have 35 full-hookup RV sites and four family-style cabins with multiple bedrooms.

“The new resort by our store is just minutes from the state park entrance too,”  Roemen said. “We have some Airbnbs in Custer too – they’re called the Custer flats.”

The store and future resort are “right on the French Creek and just outside the town of Custer,” she said. “The store is open right now and will be open through September.”

Bearded Buffalo is one of almost three dozen vendors that shoppers will find at the 605 Made Night Market. The event is from 3 to 9 p.m. Saturday in the Raven parking lot on the southeast corner of Sixth Street and Phillips Avenue.

Bearded Buffalo was the winner of a booth donated to a vendor by sponsor The First National Bank in Sioux Falls.

The free event is co-organized by Knotty Gnome Variety & Salvage and SiouxFalls.Business, with Pomegranate Market also serving as a sponsor.

For a complete vendor guide, click below.

Here’s your guide to shopping, food, entertainment at Saturday’s 605 Made Night Market