The best option is always going to be an in person tune at a shop that knows what they're doing. Which may be difficult for a '97, as the only commercially available tuning software that works with the '96-'97 black box PCMs that I'm aware of is JET DST. It's a capable program but it's older and doesn't have nearly the market share of more modern options like HPTuners or EFILive, so most shops probably won't be using it.
There are a couple of mail order tuners that can do the '96-'97 PCMs, Black Bear Performance for one. But mail order tunes are going to be more difficult to get dialed in correctly the farther you get from stock.
Personally I would avoid the handheld programmers like the ones that JET or Hypertech offer. There's nothing wrong with them for the most part, but they're expensive for what they are and don't allow drastic changes from stock. A real tune generally costs about the same or less and you can customize a lot more.
If you plan on doing any other performance modifications you'll want to do that stuff before the tune to maximize your gains.