Growing salsa business decides to open food truck instead of restaurant
Sept. 13, 2021
Salas Salsas has dropped plans to open its first restaurant because the space it was planning to lease in the Jones421 Building won’t be available before winter.
“We decided it’s not worth the delay,” said Marcela Salas, who started selling salsas and take-and-bake tamales and enchiladas with her mother, Patricia Burbine, at the Brandon Farmers Market last year. “We’re just picking up and moving on. … It’s a little disheartening.”
The women will return to their initial expansion plan of starting with a food truck. They had purchased a used bread truck a year ago and started doing pop-up restaurants to explore their possible menu but shelved work to convert the vehicle when Jones421 landlord Sheila Hazard recruited them earlier this summer.
Hazard wanted them to take over the space of Swamp Daddy’s Cajun Kitchen, which is moving to a larger site in the first-floor marketplace of the mixed-use building at 421 N. Phillips Ave.
Salas said they were notified Aug. 12 that Swamp Daddy’s would not be ready to move out by Sept. 1, which is when the Mexican restaurant’s lease was set to begin. Salas and her mother found a contractor in early July and had started buying equipment and decor.
“She (Hazard) wanted us to wait three months,” Salas said, which would allow Swamp Daddy’s to stay open until its new space was ready. “We didn’t think it was a good time to open up in the wintertime.”
Hazard said the delay came because the city of Sioux Falls has a backlog of building permit requests to review.
“Usually, it takes three days, maximum of a week,” Hazard said. “When it (Swamp Daddy’s permit) was first submitted to the city, they said it would take eight to 10 weeks for it to be reviewed.” That’s when she notified Salas Salsas.
Instead of looking for another restaurant space to lease, Salas and Burbine decided to refocus on the food truck. They hope to have it ready in a couple of months but might wait until spring to open.
In the meantime, they’ll continue to sell their food at the Brandon Farmers Market and Cherry Rock Farms while those markets are open until later this fall. They’re also working to find other retailers who will sell their products.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Burbine said. “God is in control of everything, and I trust in him in everything.”
She said they’ll continue to follow their dream of having a restaurant. “Not this time, but maybe one day.”
