Feb. 17, 2022

When Swamp Daddy’s Cajun Kitchen reopens Saturday in its new space, customers will find old favorites with lots of new flavors and a whole new atmosphere.

“It’s like we’ve created a new restaurant,” owner Del’Inkka Beaudion said. “We kept the same name, I’m the same person, but it’s like a whole new restaurant. Some of the same menu items are there, but because of the vibe, I feel like it’s different – the expanded menu, the dining experience and then the aspect of having a bar is different.”

The restaurant, which started as a food truck in 2014, has grown out of its small space on the south side of the Jones421 Building marketplace, where diners ordered at the counter and sat at four small tables or across the hallway in the common seating area.

Now, it’s around the corner and takes up both sides of the hallway – one side with the restaurant that seats about 40 diners and the other side with the bar that looks out into the building’s courtyard.

The color scheme is teal and purple, and a large Mardi Gras-inspired mural adorns the west brick wall. Beaudion said it’s based on a painting a former employee did for the restaurant’s original spot. He lives elsewhere in the state now but returned to work on the mural during his wife and daughter’s weekly trips to Sioux Falls for cancer treatments.

That painting and additional original artwork by him and other artists line one wall in the new space.

Beaudion had ordered the restaurant’s colorful tables before he started the mural and loves how they ended up coordinating.

What’s her favorite part about her new home?

“The space, just like the extra room, because we were working in such a small space over there, just appreciating and enjoying the bigger space that we’re going to have No. 1. Honestly, that’s what it is. Because the bigger space, that comes with so much more. I can do more in my kitchen. My storage is different. I can serve more people. We can have people actually dine in.”

With the move, the restaurant at 421 N. Phillips Ave. is setting hours that will be easier for customers to remember, Beaudion said. It will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Diners will still find some of the original items from the food truck days: the fried chicken po’boy, jambalaya and gumbo.

“Those particular items people know, like whenever you think of Louisiana and Cajun, Southern-style  food, that’s what they think of – the staples,” Beaudion said.

But the bigger kitchen, which is still open so customers can watch the cooks in action, will allow for an expanded menu.

“We are slowly incorporating our new menu in phases,” she said. “So with that, some of the older menu items may fall off so we can incorporate some of our newer menu items. I plan on doing that in about two to three phases.”

She doesn’t want to have a menu that diners have to page through and wants staff to be comfortable in the new kitchen before expanding too much.

“We will have a separate menu for just lunch, and then you can get some of those menu items from lunch at dinnertime but not the other way around.”

Now that she has found a consistent supplier for crawfish, Swamp Daddy’s will be adding crawfish etouffee, which is a staple is Louisiana, to the menu.

“We have one dish that I’m really excited about that has panko-battered eggplant with a crab cake that has a crawfish cream sauce with some grilled shrimp on top,” Beaudion said of another addition. “It’s really, really good.”

That sauce also will be used with butternut squash ravioli, and there will be dishes with red snapper, Gulf shrimp and catfish.

The dessert menu will expand, too, but customers will still find mother-in-law Gwendolyn Beaudion’s bread pudding. The two women started the food truck, but Gwen has moved mostly behind the scenes, helping out with the “grandbabies,” Beaudion said, thankful to have family to help care for the couple’s three girls.

There will be beignets, a blueberry flapjack cake, cheesecake and bananas foster with a twist.

“Our take on it — it’s all about interpretation of a dish and what you can do to put your own twist on it … and so it’s the bananas foster on top of a light corn cake and served with some ice cream, so it’s really, really, really good.”

Beaudion is excited about the additions that will come with adding a bar to Swamp Daddy’s offerings. There will be live music, featured wine nights and special wine dinners.

“I feel like our building needed a bar like this,” she said.

To manage the bar, she hired Jennifer Pulse who worked at Wine Time on Main before it closed.

“Bringing over her expertise is a huge benefit for us,” Beaudion said.

“We’ve got quite a few different drinks that are not just your typical like a red or white wine or the beer options. We created and crafted some (wine-based) drinks.”

The entire staff has grown from eight people to two dozen and is still growing. Beaudion said she’s still hiring servers and cooks for full- and part-time positions.

“It’s good to grow our family, a team of individuals that can help execute my vision and to be able to serve our customers.”

Beaudion said she’s happy to have had the opportunity to be part of the Jones421 Building and see the business grow. She remembers the building’s co-developer, Sheila Hazard, inviting her to see the marketplace while it was under construction and explaining the vision for it.

“One thing that I love about the Jones building is it’s unique, the concept itself is different. The open-air market is something that’s different. You can have a family of however many come in, and somebody might want Swamp Daddy’s or they may want Boki or whatever. Having the opportunity to all be able to come to one area and enjoy some good food, some good drinks, hang out downtown, I think it’s a good opportunity.”

And when nicer weather comes, she envisions Swamp Daddy’s customers easily spilling out into the courtyard using the doors in the bar.

It will be a whole new vibe for the one-time food truck that’s now a bar and restaurant. But one thing stays the same:

“I want people to come hungry and leave happy.”