BROOKINGS – A new eatery opened in Brookings last month. Yessica’s Restaurant, located at 1300 Main Ave. S., is a family-owned Mexican and Italian restaurant.

Honduran native, owner, manager and chef Edwin Alvarez said that he and his family love being in Brookings and that it has been a good town to them. 

Alvarez’s daughter, granddaughter, son, brother-in-law and mother all work at the restaurant.

Alvarez has three decades of professional cooking and restaurant experience as well as a degree in culinary arts. 

Originally, Yessica’s had been located in Huron, but employment struggles and amount of people who wanted to come to his restaurant didn’t make it worth staying there, Alvarez said.

The restaurant has been open in Brookings for just over one month and “every night it has been busy here,” Alvarez said. “We’ve been really successful.”

Alvarez lives in Sioux Falls so that his wife can be closer to the hospital system so she can more easily be on dialysis. He decided to open a restaurant in Brookings so that he could work in a less saturated market.

“But if we wouldn’t have the passion for cooking, there would be none of this,” said Alvarez as he gestured to the building and his family.

The hours for the restaurant are from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. 

For more information, visit Yessica’s Restaurant Facebook page.