10 Question With: Chef Lance White

First, the burger. What inspired your choice this year?

I started thinking about the burger in December, and the idea was thrown out there to do a caprese burger, like a pizza burger, that margherita flavor but on a burger. Marinara didn’t make sense. We landed on pesto, and I just started playing with it. Breadsmith made the bun for us, which was a sun-dried tomato bun, and I was like, ‘That’s perfect.’ We just kept experimenting, and the last time we made it for the staff, they were like, “Oh my gosh, it’s so good.”

Did you try any other restaurants’ burgers? Any favorites?

We did. Last year, we tried a lot more because we had more of a social life. This year, my wife and I are like hermits. It’s just work and home. So we tried I think four or five different ones from around town. Of the ones I tried, I thought Tommy Jack’s was my favorite. They also used a Breadsmith bun, and it was my kind of burger. It had jalapeno on it, and I don’t mind jalapeno.

So now is it back to sort of normal at the restaurant? Anything new on the menu you’re excited about?

I don’t think it will be. With being in the news, we’re kind of on people’s minds, and when we won the Pork Battle, we decided to keep that (dish) for another month, and we’re going to do that with this burger. So as that news started getting out, the reservation system we have started dinging. So I think we’re going to be busy, which is what a chef wants. The other thing that’s interesting is I started our new menu on Jan. 2, and with the Burger Battle, everyone just orders the Burger Battle burger. I put out a black and bleu sirloin, a nice pork tenderloin dish, there’s a few new dishes, but no one cares. They sit down, and they’re there for the Burger Battle burger. It’ll probably be March before people actually look at the menu.

You opened September of 2020. What has been the biggest surprise about being a business owner?

It kind of sounds weird, but the biggest surprise for us with the restaurant is how busy we are. We never would have thought we would be this busy all the time. It’s a great problem to have, but at some point we thought it would have slowed down a bit, and it hasn’t.

We were busy out the gate, and it’s pretty much stayed that way. We’re not a huge restaurant, we only have so many seats, and we like to do reservations because we like to know who is coming and not scramble to get a table together. And often that means people can’t get in, and I don’t know how to solve that.

Plan ahead. That’s the only thing I can say. Make your reservation online early. Lunch, you can usually get in. But those have been a lot busier, and people are after the dinner entrees. If you want to come on the weekends, Friday and Saturday, those are a lot of times full by Wednesday. Later in the evening, you can walk in if you come at 8 p.m.

Most memorable moment that has occurred in the restaurant?

Oh gosh. There’s been so many. I would say the first two that come to mind that are really meaningful to us is we had some friends of mine actually get married in the restaurant. And that’s a big deal to us that they chose our place to actually get married. And then we also shut it down for another couple’s wedding, and I’ve catered weddings a lot, and there’s something magical that happens when you shut out the public, and here’s this couple and they decorated it and brought in a band, and it’s hard to describe in words. It’s so much more meaningful. Our restaurant is our home, and the people in it are literally our family, and someone is now starting a family there.

Be honest: How much do you work?

I work a ton. We sold about 1,800 burgers, and I personally probably cooked 1,700 of those. I have a team, we all have our jobs, but I work almost every service.

So, yeah, 12-plus hours a day, and if the restaurant ran out of lemons, I go get them at the grocery store. I would say I at least put in nine to 10 hours inside the restaurant, but being an owner I’m constantly talking to my wife, Jenny, about events or picking things up or picking up my employees so they can come work. There’s always something.

If you’re not at work, where can we find you?

You can find me on my brand-new couch with my wife just relaxing. We got a new home about four months ago and got a grown-up couch, and on the weekends – our weekend is Sunday-Monday and we take most of those off as religiously as we can – if we’re not at home we might be out to eat somewhere letting someone else cook, or we just order in.

Who does the cooking in your house?

Both of us do. Jenny feels bad if I offer to cook. She’s like, “You cook all day every day,” and she often is home at night with the kids and cooks for them, and I cook for her when I can, so it’s a nice balance. I made her some just real simple cauliflower mash with a little cream cheese and mozzarella (the other day), and I know it was good because she’s asked for it three days in a row. It kind of comes and goes.

What’s something people might be surprised to learn about you?

I’m self-taught, and I really think we got Chef Lance’s on Phillips because I was stubborn and never gave up. I went through a few business failures to get to Chef Lance’s on Phillips. Some were my own making, and some were timing, but I would say that’s one thing about me people might not know. I didn’t even plan on opening this restaurant. It was kind of right place, right time, and I do work a lot because I ask my employees to work hard. And if I’m not working hard with them, then that mentality switches. I think our team is that much stronger because of it. They all are willing to work more and volunteer when we have events, and I just never want to be that chef who just is in the office counting the cash while everyone else does the work.

OK, final question. You get a shameless plug for anything you want in town.

I would really, really like to thank Downtown Sioux Falls Inc. for the Burger Battle. They won an award for what they do because it is such a smart idea, and it’s a win-win-win. January has to be the coldest, and there was so much traffic, so I want to thank them for coming up with the idea. I think it pushes the owners and chefs to create new dishes and put out the best product they can. The competition – everyone’s burger as a whole was insane this year. Just the creativity is cool, so they probably spark that and don’t even realize it.