Downtown Sioux Falls Pork Showdown 2026: What Past Winners Reveal

"Porktober has kind of become a thing," Taryn Sietsema, chief development officer for Downtown Sioux Falls Inc., told KELOLAND on the day the 2026 Pork Showdown opened. This is the contest's sixth year. Twenty-six downtown restaurants are each serving a pork entree through Oct. 31, and diners score the dishes in the DTSF Passport App.

The past winners tell you how this contest is decided. All five champions so far have been composed plates you eat with a knife and fork. The scorecard rewards that kind of dish, and it helps sort the 2026 lineup into likely trophy contenders and dishes that make a great Tuesday lunch.

Two Kitchens, Five Titles

The trophy has gone to only two restaurants. Chef Lance's on Phillips won the first two years. Crawford's Bar & Grill has won every year since.

Last year's winner shows the pattern most clearly. SiouxFalls.Business described Bavarian Echoes as crisp-edged pork belly glazed in hot honey with charred pork tenderloin over truffled potato puree. It came with tomato jam, mustard caviar, pickled onion relish, and a finish of pretzel crumb and almond brittle. Crawford's sold 495 orders of it in October 2025, close to one in every twelve of the 6,000-plus pork dishes sold downtown that month.

How the Scorecard Works

The winner isn't the dish with the most sales or the most votes. In 2025, each voter scored a dish from 1 to 10 in five categories, and the dish with the highest average score won. The 2026 categories are best use of pork, flavor, tenderness, presentation, and customer service. Customer service replaces last year's "overall experience."

Two of those five categories, tenderness and presentation, play to a plated entree with several components. A sliced tenderloin fanned across a puree has more to show a judge than a sandwich in a paper boat. That's a guess based on the past results, not a rule. But all five winners so far have looked like that.

The scores also come from a small share of diners. In October 2025, diners cast 1,695 votes in the app, up 39 percent from 2024, while the event sold more than 6,000 dishes and brought in more than $140,000. That works out to fewer than one vote for every three dishes sold. With so few votes, each one carries real weight. Sietsema put it this way: "a vote is so important to these restaurants. It helps them to take home a trophy at the end of the competition."

The 2026 Plates Built for That Scorecard

Several of this year's entries are clearly knife-and-fork dishes. Going by the dish names on the official DTSF event page, these look closest to the winning pattern:

• Crawford's Bar and Grill, Apricot Basil Pork. The name doesn't tell you the format, but this is the kitchen behind the last three winners.
• Black Watch, Bootlegger's Pork Belly
• Ironwood Steakhouse, Pork Tenderloin Roulade
• Ode to Food and Drink, Apple Pork Tenderloin
• R Wine Bar, Pork Trilogy
• Nunzio's, Pappardelle Bolognese
• Fernson Downtown, Sticky Ribs
• MB Haskett Delicatessen, Ginger Pork Bowl

Black Watch is the newest name on the list. The speakeasy-style restaurant opened to the public on June 18, 2026, according to the Argus Leader. Chef and general manager Dan Myers told Dakota News Now that the pork belly is brined, braised, cooled, and fried, then finished with a cherry bourbon glaze. "Our process literally takes 48 hours to make," he said. That much technique is aimed squarely at the tenderness and presentation scores.

The Black Watch dish also echoes Crawford's 2025 winner, which used pork belly as one of its two main proteins. Both kitchens are building on the same cut, and the two restaurants are only a short walk apart, so you can try both and compare.

The Handheld Half of the Field

Many of the 26 entries are built to be picked up:

• Blarney Stone, Celtic Cuban
• Bread and Circus, PBLT
• Monks Ale House, Porky's Torta Sandwich
• Perch, The Pork Cutlet Po' Boy
• PAve, Pig Play Pizza
• Totally Rad Pizza, Porchetta Dip

Totally Rad Pizza is competing for the first time. Beau Vondra, director of food and beverage operations for Fernson Brewing Company and Totally Rad Concepts, described the entry to KELOLAND: a roasted shoulder porchetta sandwich with bacon fat, braised collard greens, and provolone whiz on a hoagie, served with pork jus and French fries. His goal is less about the trophy. "I want them to just come try it. Voting or not, it's just a fun time for us," Vondra said.

That's the other half of what Porktober offers. Sietsema told Dakota News Now that the event is meant to drive foot traffic downtown and send people into restaurants they haven't tried yet. A Cuban at Blarney Stone or a po' boy at Perch fits a weekday lunch break. A three-way pork plate at R Wine Bar fits a Friday night.

The rest of the lineup is harder to sort by name alone. Big Sioux Diner & Dive has Sauced Swine, BlackFork Farms has The Heluka, Dahlia Kitchen + Bar has Panza De Fuego, and JL Beers has Pork Norris. Josiah's Coffeehouse is serving The Coyote, Phillips Ave Diner a Pork Fritter, Pomegranate Market The Pork & Melon Bistro Stack, and Rivage Oak Kitchen The Popped Collar. Shenanigans Sports Bar and Grill has Phillips Pineapple Al Pastor, The Lodge Bar & Grill has The Herb & Barrel, The WP Café has The Sweet Heat Piggie, and Maribella Ristorante has Pluma. Big Sioux Diner & Dive isn't new to the contest. It competed in 2025 as Big Sioux Burger and changed its name in February 2026.

Who Moved Up When Last Year's Top Five Changed

Two of the 2025 runners-up aren't on this year's list. The rest of last year's top five were Cascata's Cascata Pork Chop, PAve's Fork Yeah, Maribella's Braciola di Maiale, and Chef Lance's on Phillips' Pulled to Perfection Burrito. Neither Cascata nor Chef Lance's appears on the 2026 roster.

That leaves PAve and Maribella as the only returning restaurants besides Crawford's that finished near the top last year. Both made changes. PAve moved from Fork Yeah to Pig Play Pizza, a handheld format no champion has used yet. Maribella's new entry is Pluma. KELOLAND reported that seven restaurants are entering for the first time this year. The only first-timer its coverage named is Totally Rad Pizza.

All of that pushes the competition toward the plated entries in the first list. The kitchen that has won three years running is back. Last year's second-place finisher is gone. The most technically ambitious newcomer is cooking pork belly. If the scorecard works the way it has for five years, the title will most likely be decided among Crawford's, Black Watch, Ironwood, Ode, R Wine Bar, and Maribella.

Planning the Rest of October

The contest runs through Oct. 31, so a few things help with the remaining weeks.

1. Add the app first. DTSF's Passport App is at passport.dtsf.com, and each participating restaurant also has a QR code for voting.
2. Ask about price when you order. No published source lists set prices for the entries.
3. Pair a contender with a lunch. One plated entry and one sandwich in the same week covers both halves of the field.
4. Vote on every dish you try. Last year's turnout means each score has a real effect on the average.

The pork itself comes from closer than downtown. The event's sponsor, the South Dakota Pork Producers Council, says the state has more than 3 million hogs and more than 400 farm families. "It's a direct connection between the farm and community," said Abby Riemenschneider of the council. The 2026 champion will be named after the month ends. Last year's winner was announced on Nov. 7.

At Amanda Buell Homes, we track downtown Sioux Falls closely, from which kitchens keep winning to which blocks draw people in on a weeknight in October. If you're curious how life downtown factors into what your own home is worth, request your personalized home valuation and we'll go over it together.