April 24, 2023

A historic former grocery store on the city’s west edge of downtown will be the new home of Perch, a breakfast and lunch restaurant from well-known local restaurateurs.

Property redeveloper Alex Halbach, who’s also an attorney, bought the 1908 building at 100 S. Grange Ave. in 2021.

Perch will be a partnership of Halbach, local restaurateurs Jordan Taylor and Barry Putzke — the owners of Bread & Circus Sandwich Kitchen, Pizza Cheeks and En Place Catering — and grocery veteran Patrick Sayler.

The name was inspired “because it’s perched above downtown,” Halbach said. “Very local, very seasonal and from scratch. They’ll be making items daily whether at Perch or at the En Place commercial kitchen.”

While the menu isn’t on paper yet, much of it is already in Taylor’s mind.

He estimates it will be a menu of about 20 items with a few features. The brunch focus will be a variety of egg-based dishes such as a frittata and eggs Benedict, as well as his take on pancakes, biscuits and breakfast sandwiches.

“For me, breakfast, especially the American breakfast, is pretty flat,” Taylor said. “It’s salty, fatty, there’s no acid, there’s no spice, there’s no use of herbs, which is something we’re definitely going to do there.”

There also will be a grab-and-go case with a mix of sweet and savory pastries as well as a few lunch items on the menu.

Because of access to the catering kitchen, “we’re curing the bacon, we’re smoking the ham, most of the proteins we’re making,” Taylor said. “We can do a lot of that. We have space.”

Halbach also requested a conditional use permit for beer and wine — though it’s for brunch-related beverages as hours will be 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.

An outdoor beer and coffee bar is planned in the back on a vacant lot he also owns, designed for overflow seating because there’s indoor space for only about 20 guests.

“So this will essentially allow us to send people to the outdoor beer and coffee bar to get a drink while they wait for a table and play yard games or hang out in the yard,” he said, estimating that area could hold up to 50 guests.

After multiple challenges moving into construction, “things have been moving a little quicker,” Halbach said. “Equipment is starting to fill my garage, so it’s starting to move finally. That building is in such bad shape, way worse than I thought.”

The project received a $95,000 facade easement grant from the city of Sioux Falls, and work to redo the brick is scheduled to start soon.

“The guts of the building are in really bad shape,” Halbach said. “I actually can’t wait to get the front windows opened back up because there will be so much natural light in that space once it’s fully opened.”

The second floor is still available for an office.

“Second floor is going to be really cool,” Halbach said. “I still think it’s perfect for a real estate office or insurance agency or sole practitioner law firm.”

The hope is to open Perch sometime this summer. Progress updates will be shared on Facebook and Instagram.