July 7, 2021

Fat Kid Filly’s is shifting into a higher gear with a new concessions contract and plans for a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Cody Sauers and his wife, Amber, started the business as a food truck in 2020, expanded into concessions at Sioux Falls venues and added a second truck this year.

Now, they’re taking over the food service at Huset’s Speedway starting Sunday and preparing to open Fat Kid Saloon in Salem, where they live.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Sauers, whose signature menu item is a “Filly,” a spin on a Philly cheesesteak. “We’ve only been doing this for around 15 months is all.”

Sauers will go before the Salem City Council next week, seeking approval for a full-service restaurant, which also would serve beer and liquor.

“We’re planning on seven days a week from early morning for breakfast up to bar times,” Sauers said. “It’s a couple of blocks from my home, so it’s going to be a lot less stressful.”

He’s looking forward to bringing a larger food selection to Salem, which is about a half-hour drive from the northwest edge of Sioux Falls.

“We want to bring more of home-baked cooking: smoked meatloaf, bacon-egg-cheese breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, always our award-winning Fillies, lunch specials.”

He envisions creating a bar that will be a must-visit stop for bikers on their way to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, “something similar to Wall Drug.” There might be poker runs and bike nights in the summer.

With the new opportunities, Sauers put the original food truck — a 1986 RV that he gutted and rebuilt himself — on the market, and it sold the same day.

He said he offered it at a great price to give “someone the opportunity to grow into something like I did. … I feel like I got what I wanted out of it.”

The new owner said he plans to operate it in Sioux Falls with a different menu but isn’t ready to talk about it yet.

Fat Kid Filly’s will still run out of the newer trailer, which features a hardwood double-rotisserie smoker, mostly doing larger events. It also will continue serving at concessions stands in the Denny Sanford Premier Center and at Sioux Falls Canaries games “as long as they’ll have us.”

The Huset’s contract involves three spots in the grandstands and one in the pits, with racing every Sunday and a few special events. Sauers will add Filly sandwiches to the menu of burgers, hot dogs, candy, popcorn — “all the fun concessions stuff.” With fryers, he’s planning to create Filly fries with all the sandwich toppings on top of the potatoes.

While Sauers is excited about the business opportunity at Huset’s, he’s also happy about it for sentimental reasons.

“My grandpa (Bill Sauers) raced street stocks at Huset’s. We went out there every Sunday for the better part of my life.”

The evolution of Fat Kid Filly’s in such a short time is a blessing, Sauers said, and he sees it as a way to keep giving back to the community with fundraisers at Fat Kid Saloon once it’s up and running.

He envisions hosting hog roasts and shrimp boils for community fundraisers and conducting food drives and meal giveaways similar to those he has done for holidays since opening the food truck.

“We like feeding people.”