Aug. 19, 2024

The east-side location of The Keg has closed four months after switching to takeout and delivery only.

“The lease was up, and we were struggling with staffing anyway,” said Vonnie Larsen, who owns the longtime fried chicken restaurant with her husband, Neil. Sunday was the final day for the location at 5216 E. Arrowhead Parkway.

Five employees, including three who work full-time at the west-side location at 4211 W. 12th St., were keeping the east-side location going six nights a week. “We didn’t want to burn them out,” Larsen said. The other two employees will shift to the west-side location.

“Sioux Falls has been fantastic,” Larsen said, noting that customers kept the east-side location busy, but staffing was the struggle.

The Arrowhead Parkway site opened in 2020 just weeks before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.

“What happened was COVID hit, and we lost all our trained staff and everything,” Larsen said. “After that, we were constantly hiring, trying to catch up. People move on; there’s more than chicken life.”

The west-side location is fully staffed, she noted. “We do have a lot of longtime employees that we adore.”

That said, “we’re always taking applications because you just never know.”

The family’s ownership of The Keg dates back to 1979 when Neil Larsen’s parents bought the business when it was called Keg Beer Lounge at 10th Street and Bahnson Avenue. The Keg eventually moved to 26th Street and Sycamore Avenue and expanded with a second location at 57th Street and Marion Road, but the restaurants closed in 2010 and 2012 when “hard times hit” in the midst of the Great Recession. After that, the Larsens served their chicken for a couple of years at The Lakes Resort on Lake Madison before returning the restaurant to Sioux Falls in 2015 on West 12th Street.

After the east-side location closed the dining room in April, it added delivery through DoorDash. The west-side Keg doesn’t offer delivery, but that’s being considered now, Larsen said.

While the family is sad about closing the east-side location, they’re still here for Sioux Falls, she said.

“They can come get their chicken fix on the west side.”