July 2, 2020

A restaurant, gift shop and enhanced club-style lounge are among the additions that are drawing visitors to the South Dakota Military Heritage Alliance – with more on the way.

There still hasn’t been an official grand opening for the center at 1600 W. Russell St. – that was scratched as COVID-19 ramped up – but that hasn’t stopped military members and other guests from discovering it.

“We run over 2,000 customers a month coming through now, and that’s picking up,” executive director Brian Phelps said.

One of the newer additions, the Patriot Grill, is open daily for lunch and dinner.

“The restaurant is doing fantastic,” Phelps said. “We’re going to update it in July. In June, we added a bunch of new items like a chicken linguini, a walnut chicken salad, and in July, we’re going to add sloppy joes to our lunch special, but it will be different than anybody else’s. I want to do the good favorites but with a little twist.”

Here’s a look at the current menu:

While the dinner crowd has been a little slow, Phelps expects that to pick up as events return to the nearby Denny Sanford Premier Center.

Next up – a coffee shop, which will be a brand developed by the South Dakota Military Heritage Alliance using local beans.

As soon as a name is locked in, “then I can order the labels and equipment,” Phelps said, and it won’t take long to open.

In the meantime, the event space and lounge areas have drawn visitors even during the height of the pandemic.

“We spread tables 10 feet wide across the event space, and our customer count has been phenomenal,” Phelps said.

“Our gun range has been setting records, with women and families (also) coming in. We see more families coming in to our family game center upstairs off the lounge. We’ve got Battleship, Army Monopoly, Jenga, decks of cards, and kids can just use them. So we’re seeing families come in and have a burger and a beer and put puzzles together. You don’t see that anywhere in Sioux Falls.”

For the holiday weekend, the center is stepping it up with special events, cooking burgers, brats and hot dogs with chips and a drink for $5 outside along with other special offers.

A new mural also offers patriotic photo opportunities. It was painted by Menno artist Mickey Harris.

“We’ll do a raffle in our gift shop and tours of the new building where the VFW and American Legion are moving in, and in the gun range, people can come shoot the weapons used in the various wars,” Phelps said.

For $25 participants can shoot a:

• 30-40 Krag-Jorgensen
• 1903 Springfield
• 1911 pistol
• M1 Garand
• M1 Carbine
• Thompson Semi Auto (tommy gun)
• M1A
• Beretta M9
• M4

Anyone is welcome to the center, Phelps emphasized.

“That’s the biggest thing I get – people saying, ‘Is this only for military people?’ No, it’s open for everyone but with a military theme,” he said.

“The mission, the reason this place even exists is because of the presidential decree last year that it takes the community and private citizens to come together helping (prevent) the 22 veterans a day who commit suicide in this country. The money we raise goes to military support to provide the services needed to those who fought for the country.”

The Alliance hopes each visitor becomes a member, Phelps said. The fee is $1. From there, veterans receive 10 percent off everything except the gun range, and civilians receive 5 percent off.

New additions coming include a barbershop offering basic military-style haircuts, a theater space for small groups to gather, a family recreation area with a two-story military obstacle course, a prayer space, a library and a museum.

“In the next month, we have about 30 different meetings and activities going on,” Phelps added. “We’ve had the Rolling Thunder people in to meet, we had Women’s Freedom Riders come in a week ago. That was a great crowd of people on motorcycles. So just a lot of really neat, exciting things going on.”

Hours generally are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, though they could go later based on events.