April 21, 2022

When customers walk into this new family-owned restaurant on the east side of downtown, they’ll be transported to Brazil.

That will happen with the sound of bossa nova music, the sight of hammocks swinging from the rafters, the smell of meat roasting in the wood-fired oven and, of course, the taste of traditional Brazilian dishes.

“We’re just trying to bring a little more color to Sioux Falls,” said Mark Gillespie, who is opening Roots of Brasil on April 30 in part of the historic Stockman’s Exchange Bank building at Eighth Street and Weber Avenue with wife Kaila, parents-in-law Kelly and Tania Grogan and brother-in-law Jamie Grogan.

The family’s ties to Brazil come from Tania, who was born there and had just graduated from college when she met her future husband in 1974 at Dakota State University in Madison while she was part of an exchange program.

“What we wanted to do is bring to the town the food that we have grown up with or been accustomed to and from our regions where we lived in Brazil and likewise what my mom and our family and her family have made and ate the majority of their life,” said Jamie, who will serve as the chef with help from his mom and other staff.

That will include about a dozen traditional dishes such as feijoada, or black beans and rice with smoked meat, of which “the flavor is insane,” Kaila said.

“Most of the time when you eat Brazilian food, you never reach for the salt and pepper,” Tania said. “It’s very flavorful.”

The Brazilian version of stroganoff features chicken or beef with rice instead of noodles, and it’s topped with batata palha, which are shoestring potato sticks.

“We’ll have some different risottos that no one is really doing,” Jamie said. That includes a chicken frango risotto and a coconut milk version with shrimp, snapper or chicken.

A family-style dinner for two or four people will offer two choices of five meats — picanha and fraldinha, which are beef; linguiça, a smoked pork sausage; Caribbean chicken thighs; and chicken hearts — and two choices of a side.

Popular Brazilian street foods will be served such as pastels, a fried pastry with a savory filling, and cachorro quente, a hot dog.

Roots of Brasil will put the original Breadico pizza oven that’s still part of the building to good use, making Brazilian-style pizzas and smoked meats.

“For the pizzas, most of the toppings will be different,” said Jamie, who most recently was the chef at McNally’s Irish Pub. “Crustwise, it won’t be like any of the traditional American pizzas. It’ll be a lot of different flavors out of that, a lot of hearts of palm, a lot of coconut milk-infused things as well.”

The crust is spread with a Brazilian soft processed cheese, and there’s mozzarella and burrata on top of the other ingredients.

A gluten-free crust will be offered.

Throughout the menu, there will be several vegetarian options, including for the feijoada “because that is much a staple part of the menu that we wanted to make sure everybody can have it,” Kaila said.

Her sister Melissa will make some of the desserts, including brigadeiros, which are chocolate truffles. Other offerings will include creamy Brazilian flan and delícia de morango, which has layers of fresh strawberries, creamy condensed milk and chocolate. Lemon chocolate pave offers alternating thin layers of a traditional biscuit cookie called biscoitos, creamy lemon and chocolate with table cream.

Roots of Brasil will serve beer, wine and nonalcoholic drinks, including Guaraná Antarctica, which “in Brazil, they advertise as the champagne of pop,” Tania said. Beer options will include at least one from Brazil, and since Brazil isn’t known for wine, those choices will come from Argentina instead.

It will be open for lunch and dinner. Hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Starting a restaurant together wasn’t something they had been planning, Tania said.

Kaila and Mark had been out of the restaurant business since selling Kaladi’s Bistro with their partners in May 2021. She works for Social Indoor and was in the building to take down the digital advertising boards in the shared restrooms with the new Convolo event venue when she saw the vacant restaurant space.

She found out how much the rent was and “I texted these guys and said ‘Do you want to start a Brazilian restaurant?’ and they’re like, ‘Let’s do it.’ We came that night and looked at the space and went from there.”

They’re excited to be downtown.

“The space is beautiful,” Kaila said. We know what downtown’s future looks like. … We wanted to be a part of it.”

The restaurant will seat almost 60 people, so it’s “small, quaint, food-focused, atmosphere-focused,” Mark said.

Most of the seating – at booths and tables — is in the loft, where there are Brazilian hammocks hanging for decoration from the rafters.

Playing in the background, bossa nova music – a style developed decades ago in Rio — will help transport diners to Brazil. Mark and Kaila are musicians, and they’re planning to have a keyboardist join them and offer live music sometimes on the weekend.

On the main floor, an alcove serves as the “family room” with a large dining table made by Mark’s brother, Brian. Old photographs on the wall include Tania’s father on horseback surrounded by cattle at his ranch in Brazil.

Throughout the restaurant, reclaimed barnwood stained by Mark in light blue and various shades of brown help tie together the ranch and beach vibe the family wanted to create. Mark and Kelly did much of the renovation.

The lower-level flooring was designed to look like the tiled sidewalk that stretches for miles on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Look closely, and you’ll find each family has written their names or those of loved ones on the floor.

The months of preparation, which Kaila said were possible with the support of family and friends, are nearly completed.

“We’re excited,” Mark said. “It’s just going to be nice to add some more culture to Sioux Falls and a totally different experience and just pay some homage to these guys’ family.”