Feb. 6, 2024

A downtown restaurant is expanding to The Empire Mall area.

Pho Thai will be in a retail center that includes Michaels craft store on 34th Street between Louise and Shirley avenues.

“We have a lot of customers that have requested it, and Sioux Falls is growing, and we want to be a part of that,” co-owner Kim Ueng said.

The original Pho Thai opened in 2019 in Shriver Square at 11th Street and Phillips Avenue.

The second location will have the same menu, atmosphere, hours and high-quality food and service as the downtown restaurant, Ueng said.

The space, however, is a little larger, with seating for almost 85 diners and room for a walk-in cooler and freezer in the kitchen, he said.

Seating capacity for the downtown restaurant is 68.

Pho Thai’s menu includes Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese dishes.

The new chef has experience in Thailand and Vietnam, and has been training since the beginning of the year in the downtown restaurant, Ueng said.

“The flavor, it’s just phenomenal,” he said of Pho Thai’s food. “We have a lot of supporters that like our food, and we encourage people who have never had our food to try our food.”

Before Pho Thai opened, Thai cuisine was mentioned frequently when diners talked about what Sioux Falls was missing. Since then, a handful of restaurants featuring dishes of the Southeast Asian country have opened.

“We were the first,” Ueng said. “We want to keep that momentum in putting out the next one.”

Plumbers started working in the leased space — the former home of Galaxy Gaming — this week. Ueng said he’s anticipating an opening in April or May if construction goes smoothly. The restaurant requires special kitchen equipment, but orders for it were placed late last year already.

“I am just excited to serve our community even more, to give them more convenience to access the locations,” he said. “Our staff are ready to rock and roll. We’re just waiting on the construction, and we should be good to go.”