The menu at Sickies Garage has 54 burgers on it. That is not a typo. Fifty-four named, described, categorized burgers, plus a handful of hot dogs, sandwiches, and loaded fries that could each anchor a lesser restaurant’s entire identity. Walking in for the first time, you spend the first ten minutes just reading.
The place sits on West 41st Street, out in the retail corridor near the Empire Mall, which puts it squarely in the kind of strip-mall territory that discourages expectations. Inside, the theme is full-commit: vintage gas pumps, hood ornaments, actual car parts mounted to the walls, neon signs, a ceiling draped with license plates from somewhere between thirty and forty states. It is loud and unapologetically so. This is not a quiet dinner spot. It is a place where the table next to you is probably celebrating a birthday and the kids are pointing at stuff on the walls.
The burgers run from straightforward — a classic smash-style with American cheese and pickles — to genuinely strange. There’s one with peanut butter and bacon. Another topped with a fried egg and sriracha aioli. A mac and cheese burger. A burger with pulled pork on top of a beef patty. The kitchen handles the volume reasonably well, though on a Friday evening expect a wait; the place fills up fast and the dining room is bigger than it first appears.
What actually earns Sickies its repeat business is consistency. The patties are fresh, cooked to order, and the buns hold up to the weight of the toppings, which matters more than it sounds when you’re dealing with a construction as ambitious as the Hangover Cure (beef patty, fried egg, bacon, cheddar, and hash browns). Fries are hand-cut and come in a portion that two people can share without any negotiation. The onion rings are thick-battered and worth ordering even if you think you don’t want them.
Beer selection leans toward craft, with a rotating tap list that usually runs fifteen to twenty handles. South Dakota breweries show up alongside nationals. The bartenders know what’s on and can point you toward something if you ask. Prices for beer are fair — most pints land between five and seven dollars. Burgers run roughly eleven to sixteen dollars depending on complexity, which is competitive for the build quality you’re getting.
The service is friendly in the way that chain-adjacent casual dining trains people to be friendly, which is to say competent and consistent rather than particularly personal. That is fine. At a restaurant doing this kind of volume on a weekend night, you want competent and consistent.
Go on a weeknight if you want breathing room. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are noticeably calmer, and you get to take your time with the menu without feeling the pressure of a crowd waiting for your table. Lunch is also a reasonable option — the kitchen moves faster, the noise level drops, and the burgers are exactly the same.
Sickies is a small regional chain started in Fargo, and the Sioux Falls location has been running long enough to feel like a local fixture. It is not trying to be anything subtle. It is a burger restaurant that takes burgers seriously, buried inside a lot of enthusiastic decoration. That combination turns out to be enough.
