July 29, 2021

‘O’ So Good Restaurant’s Southern comfort food arrives Sunday in downtown Sioux Falls.

Chef Omar Thornton closed his Garretson location and moved into the kitchen at Wileys at Sixth Street and Main Avenue.

He has spent the past week or so getting familiar with the kitchen, creating dinner and late-night menus, training staff, trying to hire more workers and starting to serve food.

Sunday will be the grand opening.

“It’s going to be smaller than the menu that I had at the other location, but it’s going to have all the heavy hitters from that one, so crab cakes, jambalaya,” Thornton said. “Collard greens are coming, and it’ll be on the menu here. Our cornbread, of course, will be on the menu; our chicken waffles will be on the menu. So basically, all of the hitters that folks have really come to like should be on there.”

Be warned: Cajun seafood pasta did not make the cut, but it and others will come back as chef specials, said Thornton, who was featured earlier this year on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” with celebrity chef Guy Fieri.

Here’s a look at the menu he’s starting with, keeping in mind it will change.

The new dinner menu will be served from 3 to 8 p.m. daily. After that, the late-night menu, with more bar food-type items will be offered. It will be served until 10 p.m. Sunday and Monday, midnight Tuesday through Thursday and 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Thornton is putting his spin on those items too. The walking taco will be elevated with house-made chips, seasoned meat and O’s three-cheese blend. Instead of beef chislic, he’s planning to serve lamb “with our twist on Southern flavors.”

Wileys had pizza on the menu, “but our pizza will be more unique for the simple fact we’re not going to be your traditional. I call it a European style, which is more like you use olive oil, ingredients like spinach … you put a little bit of sauce, it’s not drenched with sauce. We plan to have some interesting ones like we’ll do a jambalaya pizza, we’ll do a lamb pizza. It will be unique pizzas like that that I think will fit very well.”

Pizzas will be on the menu once the oven is back in service after being relocated in the kitchen, he said.

Unlike Thornton’s Garretson restaurant, which he opened in 2017, Wileys at 330 N. Main Ave. is open only to those 21 and older, and it won’t take reservations.

Thornton said he’s looking forward to drawing new diners and winning over the bar’s regular customers.

“We’ve got a great following. A lot of our followers were 35 and up, even though we did have quite a few young fans out there, so we’re hoping to get quite a few more young fans but then pull in that 35 and up crowd that never would have come here for a dinner. They would come normally for a drink and something to get into their stomach, but I think now they’ll want to come for something unique and full of flavor.”