Sept. 8, 2025

A well-known downtown restaurateur and a growing distillery are joining forces to expand at Cherapa Place.

Bryan Moscatello, owner of Harvester Kitchen by Bryan, will be relocating to The Dakota Flats building at Cherapa Place from the Harvester Building at 196 E. Sixth St.

The design for the new space at 310 N. Reid Place will span 5,000 square feet on the first floor of the building, which also includes SISU Fit and loft apartments above.

Moscatello, whose umbrella business is called Sense Hospitality, plans to expand his Nunzio’s Food Hall concept, designate his fine dining operation as HK in a stand-alone space and add a taproom for distillery BlackFork Farms.

“This is really what we need to be able to scale our business and grow our business,” he said. “It will allow us to have three operations under one roof with one shared kitchen, so for us this is super-exciting and a means to really get some good traction on what we’ve already started and achieved here at Harvester Kitchen.”

He has operated the downtown restaurant since 2021 after building a nationwide career as a leading chef, including in Washington, D.C., where he served as executive chef of The Oval Room; in Aspen, Colorado; Utah; and Panama City, Florida.

“The one thing we really want to ring true is our belief at Sense Hospitality, which is quality and guest-first mentality and refinement,” Moscatello said. “We really want guests to feel what we created at Harvester Kitchen, the attention to detail and quality, and we want them to be able to identify that there’s care.”

Nunzio’s Food Hall will be a big focal point of the space, he said. It will continue to specialize in wood-fired pizzas but will expand the menu to include salads, sandwiches and homemade pastas, with lunch and dinner options.

“We’ve been playing around with different stores like a food hall style,” Moscatello added. “We’re keeping Pierre’s Jambon … but we’ll also have a monthly guest store whether it might be a barbecue joint with smoked brisket or pulled pork, so that’s a way to tie Nunzio’s Food Hall together.”

Adjacent to that, HK “will look very similar to Harvester Kitchen with a lot of design details, but it will become more intimate and a little more contemporary,” he continued. “We really need to do a couple dozen (tables) a night to focus and give that table to the guest for the night so they can go at their own pace.”

The space will include soft seating and a fireplace in addition to a carpeted dining room.

“That’s a little design detail from one of the first restaurants I opened in Denver to give it a little more depth,” Moscatello said. “We’re really approaching it as how do we make the guest more comfortable.”

A private dining room for about a dozen guests off the kitchen will include a sliding glass door that opens to the kitchen. The area will fit Moscatello’s Test Kitchen Tuesday experience.

Within HK, there will continue to be chef-crafted seasonal menus with the option for a plant-based menu.

“We can have five or nine courses available,” Moscatello said.

The third concept in the building brings BlackFork Farms, which is near Brandt in eastern South Dakota, into Sioux Falls with a retail space and distillery taproom.

“We think that the BlackFork spirits brand fits very well with what Chef Bryan does and the whole Cherapa Place campus, so it feels like a very good match for us,” said Gordon Ommen, whose family has farmed in the Brandt area since 1889.

BlackFork Farms started the large-scale craft whiskey and bourbon distillery 10 years ago, growing artisan grains such as Native American corn and legacy German dark rye for it on a small portion of the Ommen family’s 3,000-acre corn and soybean farm.

“It’s a true field-to-glass distillery,” Ommen said.

At Cherapa Place, “we plan to have a patio, and we’re pairing our bourbon with some high-quality cigars,” he continued. “It’s a lounge whiskey bar where we’ll have our BlackFork Farms spirits and our specialty products only available there and at the distillery.”

Look for an upscale and elegantly understated design by DeWitt Designs, he said.

“It is the essence of South Dakota,” Ommen said. “We think it is a really great fit, and what that campus offers to downtown Sioux Falls and to South Dakota is really cool, and we’re happy to be part of it.”

Moscatello will oversee the entire operation, including food for the taproom.

“We’re really excited about partnering with BlackFork Farms,” Moscatello said. “It’s nice to get the liquor segment into our operation — that’s something a lot of our guests miss is having the proper cocktail, so we’ll feature BlackFork Farms spirits. Their product is amazing. It’s so good. So we’re excited by that because there’s a very similar belief. It helps that they’re in South Dakota and there’s a great story behind it. We’re like-minded in that regard and the kind of product we want to produce.”

He also envisions a menu of small bites in the taproom, “where you just want to have a drink and a snack, and it’ll be super-comfortable — really focused on a lodge feel with rich leathers.”

Construction is starting soon, and the plan is to open by the holiday season, Moscatello said.

The plan is to “really take care of the residents,” he added, including an option for Nunzio’s delivery.

“The Cherapa campus will see some really fun places to be,” he said. “You can have some great bites and bourbon, you can get a pizza or pasta and sandwich or maybe ribs or Korean fried chicken, so everybody gets a little bit of something. All three spaces will have their own identity.”

The restaurant addition follows other activity at Cherapa Place. Cafe Breadico opened in The Bancorp Building last week, and Rivage Oak Kitchen is opening in the original Cherapa Apex building later this month.

“We’re excited to add such a variety of quality dining options to the campus,” co-developer Anne Haber said. “These chefs all bring their own styles to their work, and we can see the overall activity at Cherapa increasing significantly in the months ahead as people discover what they have to offer.”

Cafe Breadico brings sourdough pastries, sandwiches to downtown