Popular salsa business to open restaurant
July 7, 2021
A mother-daughter team who started selling salsa at a farmers market and hoped to open a restaurant one day are making that dream come true.
Salas Salsas, a Mexican food and catering company owned by mother-daughter duo Patricia Burbine and Marcela Salas, will open its first brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Jones421 Building later this year.
Salas Salsas has been a present force in the Sioux Falls area for the past year, making frequent visits at the Brandon Farmers Market, and Salas said the demand they saw there was what caused them to consider opening a restaurant.
Salas Salsas began with only salsa offerings: green, red, jalapeno lime and even habanero pineapple. Later, it expanded to offer tamales, enchilada plates and totopos, or tortilla chips. Their menu at the restaurant will include tamales, enchiladas and other traditional Mexican food, Salas said. They’re even considering a Mexican breakfast option.
“We have a menu right now that we’re working on, but we’ll also be tailoring to the breakfast crowd as well because there’s The Source that opens up pretty early (in the Jones421 Building),” Salas said.
Salas Salsas will be taking over the Swamp Daddy’s space once it relocates in the first-floor marketplace. While the space currently has a very New Orleans-style decor with bright purple and yellow walls, Salas said they will be redoing it to fit a very different mold.
“We draw a lot of inspiration from a Mexican artist who makes what are called alebrijes, but we see a lot of repetitive patterns and colors and dotting,” Salas said. “And some of that’s present in our logo, but we want the decor to just be more traditional, bringing some decor in from Mexico and just kind of keeping it fresh and vibrant, kind of natural like in our logo.”
Salas said they plan to open the restaurant in October, and while they’ll be keeping the focus on that, they want to continue working on other ventures, including stocking their salsas in retail locations. For the summer, you can find them every Saturday at the Brandon Farmers Market.
