There are three Pho Thai locations in Sioux Falls, all run by the same family. This is the original — 230 South Phillips, downtown, half-block from the public library, the room everyone in the city has eaten in at least once. The 782 reviews across a 4.5-star average put Pho Thai Downtown in the conversation but not at the top of it. That's also the right reading. Pho Thai Downtown is not the best Thai food in Sioux Falls, and it's not the best Vietnamese, and it's not the best sushi — but it might be the best at being all three under one roof, and that's not a small accomplishment.
The orders. The drunken noodles are good. The pho dac biet, the combination beef pho, is the order I'd put in front of a first-time pho-curious friend — the broth is right, the meat is sliced thin, the herbs come on a separate plate so you can dose your own. The crab rangoons are why most office orders run through here. They're fried fresh, not from a bag, and the cream-cheese-to-shell ratio is correct. The sushi is — this is the right place to say it — fine. Don't come for the sushi. Come for the noodles, eat sushi if your dinner partner needs sushi, but don't make sushi the reason you walk in.
What Pho Thai Downtown is good for is breadth. You can take a vegan, a sushi person, and a pho purist and feed them all from one menu. That's not a feature most restaurants offer. Most restaurants are good at one thing. Pho Thai Downtown is competent at three, and competence at three is sometimes more useful than excellence at one. Office lunches. Family dinners. The night you can't get the four people in your group to agree. This is the room.
Hours. Closed Sundays, 11 AM to 9:30 PM the rest of the week. Get there before 6:30 on Friday and Saturday or expect a wait — the room fills up fast, especially during the post-event downtown crowd. The wait is fine. The bar in the front is small but functional.
The room itself is family-friendly and busy. It's not a quiet date-night room — go to Oshima for that — and it's not a dim hideaway. It's a bright, varied, energetic dining floor with a kitchen that's been doing this long enough to handle the volume. You'll see groups of eight, kids in high chairs, downtown professionals on their lunch break, and a college group splitting bubble tea at the corner table. That mix is the point.
Parking. Phillips Avenue meters are the front-of-house option. The metro garage on 8th Street is the back-up — five-minute walk, free after 5 PM. Don't try to park behind the building. The alley is too narrow and the dumpster sits where you'd want to leave the car.
For takeout — the to-go is reliable and the kitchen handles it well. Call ahead by twenty minutes for a single-item order, thirty for multi-item. The drunken noodles travel fine. The pho doesn't, because by the time you get it home the broth has finished cooking the noodles and you're eating soup-with-mush. Drink the pho on premises.
Card and cash. They take both. Tip in cash if you can — the credit-card processor takes a cut.
Group reservations: parties of eight or more should call a day ahead. The room can fit a long table along the back wall, but they need notice to set it up.
Compared to the other two Pho Thai locations: Downtown is the broadest and the busiest. Pho Thai West (3801 W 34th) is more consistent for a quick weeknight dinner. Pho Thai East (4001 E 10th) has the best pad thai per the regulars. Same family, same ownership, same hours, same Sunday closure. Pick by which side of the city you're already on.
Compared to the rest of the Asian scene in Sioux Falls: Pho Thai Downtown is the entry point. If you've never had real pho, this is where you start. If you've had pho in a major coastal city and want to know whether Sioux Falls can hold a candle, this is where you find out — and the answer is yes, it can, mostly, especially if you order the dac biet and don't expect the broth to taste like the version you had in Houston.
The website is phothaisiouxfalls.com. The phone is (605) 274-1686. Reservations are taken for groups of six or more. Walk-ins are welcome and recommended for everyone else. The owner family also runs the East and West locations, which means if you become a regular here, you become a regular at all three by extension. That's the kind of cross-loyalty Sioux Falls rewards.
If a friend asks where to go for "Asian food, but I'm not picky about which kind" — this is the answer. If they ask "where do I take my parents for their anniversary," go somewhere else. If they ask "where do you go when you can't decide" — Pho Thai Downtown, every time.
If they ask "where do I take my parents for their anniversary," go somewhere else.