Chef brings flavor, heat to new restaurant in bar
Sept 12, 2023
The kitchen at a west-central Sioux Falls bar has reopened with a spicy flair.
Ken Leonard of Tacos de Gringo has started a second venture that he’s calling Kenards Grille, a play on his first and last names.
It’s tucked in the back of The Gaslight Lounge at 2206 W. 12th St. Customers order and pay at the small window into the kitchen — just like they did when The Dive operated out of the space before opening its own restaurant.
While food truck season is still rolling, the kitchen’s hours will vary, but Kenards Grille is open for lunch and then again for dinner most weekdays. Leonard posts hours at the beginning of the week on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
In addition to bar patrons and food truck followers, more customers are starting to find Kenards, Leonard said.
“What they’re starting to do is someone will come in at lunch and have something, and then at dinner I hear, “My friends were here, and they said this and that.”
There’s no one early favorite with customers, he said.
“It’s been all over. It’s like every day they try something new,” he said of the regulars at the bar. “As soon as one thing goes out, they start ordering it. Yesterday was a nacho day. It’s on the menu, but they’re like, ‘I didn’t know you had nachos.’”
Leonard wanted Kenards Grille to have a menu that’s different from the food truck, but “they’re trying their darndest to get me to put tacos on the menu. I didn’t want to do that,” he said, laughing. “So now, I’m doing Taco Tuesday. We’ll see what happens.”
There’s a section on the menu called The Herd for the burgers. The Southwestern Fire Burger embraces his Arizona roots with habanero aioli, pepperjack cheese and sauteed jalapeno, habanero and onion. In addition to the patty, it has four slices of bacon. It’s $12 and comes with shoestring fries as do most of the items on the menu.
Burgers and fries go “hand in hand,” he said.
With the low overhead of the new kitchen, “I’m trying to keep our prices low, competitive.”
The Flock section of the menu features chicken sandwiches, tenders, wings and “nuggies,” his play on chicken nuggets for grownups that are hand-cut and hand-breaded.
Spicy comes into play in some of the sauce and rubs like the Cry Home to Mama Habenero sauce and his ghost pepper rub.
There are hot dogs and sandwiches. Leonard’s version of a reuben is called The Penny in honor of his grandmother who died last year. She was a veteran and so is Leonard.
All proceeds from the sandwich go to the Veterans Community Project, which is building a tiny-home village for homeless veterans.
Customers will find lots to munch on in the Nibbles section of the menu with typical bar fare like cheese curds, beef chislic, onion rings and loaded fries, all with Leonard’s “chef twist on everything.”
The bar, which has a full liquor license, is open to those 21. Eventually, Leonard hopes to add patio seating so families can eat on-site when the weather is nice.
