Food truck owner opens cafe downtown
Feb. 16, 2022
A food truck owner is keeping busy this winter operating a lunch cafe in the City Center.
Renee Standish signed a three-year agreement to operate Kota Cafe in the downtown building that houses several departments for the city of Sioux Falls. That’s the same name as the food truck that she started last summer with the goal of owning a restaurant someday.
While most of Kota Cafe’s customers are city employees, it’s also open to the public, who can use the entrance on the northwest corner of the building at 231 N. Dakota Ave.
Hours are 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. weekdays, and there’s room for about 40 people in the tables and booths.
The space doesn’t have a full kitchen, so customers won’t find Standish’s specialties like her hand-cut and hand-battered fries or the hamburgers and popcorn chicken that she serves on the truck.
Instead, she makes wraps, paninis, sliders and croissant sandwiches, and sets up a salad bar that usually turns into a nacho bar on Fridays.
“Everything’s still homemade. … Everything’s made from scratch,” she said.
“The Italian panini, I think, is my No. 1 seller. The salad bar goes pretty good too.”
That’s likely in part because the salad bar features the homemade ranch and blue cheese dressings that food truck customers loved.
There’s a different homemade soup every week, a daily hot special like beef stroganoff or baked spaghetti and often something homemade for dessert like a pan of rocky road bars.
Kota Cafe also sells box lunches for business meetings or other gatherings. Customers can reach out to her through the cafe’s Facebook page or call her at 605-906-1684.
Fans of the food truck will still be able to find it this season but maybe not quite as often, she said.
“I still run the food truck when it gets nice out. Hopefully, I can either find somebody to run this for me during the day; otherwise, I will just commit to nights and weekends with the food truck during the food truck season.”
