Oct. 31, 2024

Customers can’t buy sausages to take home and cook yet, but Dakota Craft Links has opened and is selling sausage sandwiches.

The new venture from Chef Ryan Tracy, the former owner of Bros Brasserie Americano, is in the Jones421 Building at 421 N. Phillips Ave. He took over the former Flying Santo Taco Bar space in the building’s first-floor marketplace.

Dakota Craft Links is meant to be a retail market with “a little bit of a restaurant.”

The retail market can’t open, however, until Tracy gets his retail certification from the state, which he expects within two weeks. In the meantime, customers can get a taste of what he’ll offer.

His opening menu for the restaurant side of the business features three sausages: Andouille, Sweet Italian and a Bavarian-style brat. Those are available on buns with different toppings.

“I’ve got everything where you can add a fries and soda for $4,” Tracy said. “It’s a great deal, the best deal in town.”

There’s also a craft plate with all three sausages minus the buns that comes with accoutrements like mustard. It includes a side of fries.

The sandwich and retail sausage offerings will rotate with “whatever I feel like,” Tracy said.

“I do have some sausages in the works for the holiday season. I’m working on a turkey sausage right now. I’m going to do a chicken sausage for those that don’t eat pork. I’m going to a holiday variety of both of those too, as well as like a housemade chorizo.”

Another craft link he’ll make is a Brazilian-style linguica.

Tracy said he’ll typically have six to eight varieties of links that will be sold by the pound. The market also will have housemade bacon, buns, sauces and spice rubs. He hopes to find suppliers for local eggs and milk.

Eventually, fans of Bros Brasserie Americano will find favorites to go like Tracy’s barbecue sauce.

“One main major thing I’m working on his having pork belly just like we had at Bros except ready to go for you to take home,” said Tracy, who had been cooking in other local restaurants after Bros closed in 2018.

He’s looking through other old recipes to see which ones might fit the retail model.

Dakota Craft Link’s space doesn’t include seating, but there are lots of tables scattered throughout the marketplace and outside when the weather is nice.

Diners can get a beer or soda to go with their meal.

“We’ve got a pretty good beer list,” Tracy said. “I tried to give it as local as possible while representing the styles that I wanted to represent.” That includes cider, and there also are glass bottles of soft drinks like Coca-Cola and all-natural, cane sugar sodas, including ones from Millstream Brewing Co. in Amana, Iowa.

For now, Dakota Craft Link opens at 11 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Once the retail license is approved, the market will open at 10 a.m. Closing time is 6 p.m. Tuesday, 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Sausage shop, jewelry business to help fill downtown marketplace