hotelHotel Impossible · Season 8, Episode 1 · Aired October 24, 2016
Cedar Wood Inn
Sturgis, South Dakota (Lead / Deadwood area)
Good outcome here: the business is still trading today.
On the show
Season 8, Episode 1 · October 24, 2016 · inn
Multi-property special (3 businesses in one episode): Sturgis, South Dakota.
What happened after
Family-owned motel; official site active.
What happened on the show
One of the three Black Hills properties in Melchiorri's Season 8 opener, the Cedar Wood Inn was a family-owned motel caught in the same bind as its episode-mates: poor online marketing and a difficult rental arrangement that jeopardized the whole cluster of businesses. Set on Highway 85 in the historic mining-and-gaming town of Deadwood, it depended, like every property in the region, on capturing the surge of visitors around the Sturgis rally and the steadier Black Hills tourist trade. Anthony's shared task across the three properties was to modernize how they marketed and sold themselves online and to confront the rental terms weighing them down. He pushed the family to build a stronger digital presence and put the business on more sustainable footing, because a small motel in a seasonal market cannot afford to be hard to find or locked into terms that bleed it.
After the cameras left
The Cedar Wood Inn is still operating in the Black Hills. As of our 2026 verification the family-owned motel is open, with an active official site, though its actual address sits on Highway 85 in Deadwood, South Dakota, rather than in Sturgis, part of the same regional grouping the episode used loosely. With sourcing at the site level, we log the status as confirmed operating with medium confidence. The property has stayed in business more than a decade after the show, still drawing on the rally and Black Hills traffic. Confirmed operating as of 2026.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.