BROOKINGS — For years, restaurant owner Sean Dempsey has had a special place in his heart for Brookings, and now that fondness has led him to open the doors today to Danger von Dempsey’s Pizza & Brewhaus at 770 22^nd Ave. S., Suite 11.

“I’ve always had a thing for Brookings. I’ve always wanted to be here. Ever since I went to school, I always wanted to have a store here,” Dempsey said. “So when we were able to just spy this location and sort it out, it was like, ‘We’re absolutely going to take this chance and get in.’”

His connections to Brookings include his time as a student at South Dakota State University in 2011, which his two sisters also attended and graduated from. Richard DeGraw, the general manager of the Brookings restaurant, is a Jackrabbit alumni as well. 

Moreover, the Dempsey name is synonymous with great restauranting. It was his parents, after all, who founded and operated Dempsey’s Brewery, Pub and Restaurant in Watertown in 1999 — and which Sean took over in 2016 upon their retirement.

Dempsey’s years in the restaurant business — he worked his way up from busboy to kitchen to chef prior to taking over his parents’ operation — in time led him to zero in on pizza and the multitude of approaches to making and enjoying it.

“The Danger von Dempsey name originated from the idea that I wanted to branch off and do my own thing,” he said. “I always felt like I was living under the shadow — my parents built this big behemoth of a brewery, started doing more cool things and I was able to get more in tune with the pizza-specific ideas of it.”

The first Danger von Dempsey’s Pizza & Brewhaus opened its doors in Aberdeen in 2019. Then came the site at Watertown Regional Airport in 2022. And, now, Brookings joins the list. 

He touted Dempsey’s New York-style brick oven pizzas, its more-than-ordinary salads — “Something that’s a bit more fun, fresh and different,” Sean noted — and the restaurant’s custom beers, which are brewed in Watertown. 

“Our beers are cool because we don’t do a lot distribution with the brewery apparatus. We make enough beer to cover our stores,” Dempsey said. “So the only place you can really get a Battle Axe Blonde or an Open Door IPA is going to be in one of our Dempsey’s locations.”

In addition to that, “(In Brookings), we’re going to be so focused on those bloody brilliant New York-style pies,” Dempsey said. “It’s a very unique product because we age our dough for 24 to 48 hours.”

'This is perfect'

Coming into Brookings, Dempsey knows he’s entering a growing, competitive market that already has quite a few options for diners. This is where that fondness in his heart for Brookings bursts out into the open, though.

“When I saw this location, I was like, ‘This is perfect.’ This location keeps us away from — I like coming to towns and I like complementing the town,” he said. “I don’t want to come in here and just try to be like, ‘Oh, we’re the best pizzeria in the world. Come eat us!’

“I’m a big fan of EBC. I’m a big fan of Wooden Legs Brewing Co. Love Pizza King. Love George’s. So being at this location about 2 miles away from them is just, we can do our thing up here, they’ve got their thing down there (and) we can co-exist,” Dempsey said. “That’s really important to me when we come to town and do that, that we’re not just trying to — we want to fit into the community.”

All that said, you know what the really odd thing is? All of this might not have happened, had a certain young man not had a change of heart. 

“I never really thought it would turn into this,” Dempsey said. “As a kid growing up in the restaurant industry, my goal was to get the hell out of it as quick as possible, move to Sioux Falls — go to the big city and do stuff.” He paused briefly. “And (then) I realized I don’t really like working for other people.”

Turns out, it’s a good thing folks can change their minds — and be their own boss. The original Dempsey’s in Watertown is in excellent hands, several communities now have their own Danger von Dempsey’s restaurants and, best of all, Sean Dempsey gets to continue enjoying his love affair with all things pizza.

“I never thought I would be on the United States Pizza Team. I never thought I’d go to Italy three times a year to compete. I never thought I’d get the invite to go to Bulgaria in November and compete,” Dempsey said. “It’s stuff that I didn’t see coming — I just wanted to play with pizzas, get more into it and just see what we could do and see how big we could get it. That’s kind of still what I’m still doing — I want to see how big we can get this thing. Can I open 10 more shops? Maybe!” 

He added that he trained in California in 2014 with the International School of Pizza.

“You spend two weeks doing intensive learning about wood fires, coal fires, brick ovens — just every kind of oven that exists in the world to make pizza,” Dempsey said. “That’s what really piqued my interest into getting more into the pizza field.” 

That interest has led to, among other things, pizzas with names like “Angry Dragon,” “Sweet Sicilian,” “Royal Hawaiian” and “Queen Margarita.”

“We do a lot of more unique pies, but we also get our inspiration from every other pizza place we can go and find and see,” Dempsey said. “I think the main seller (in Brookings) as a pizzeria is going to absolutely be our New York-style pizzas.” 

Weekly pizza challenges

His experimentation with pizzas extends to the “pizza of the week” challenge as well. “I don’t want to call it a fever dream, but it’s usually you get these crazy concoctions.” 

Those “concoctions” include pizzas like Thai stir-fry pizza, a Chicago proper-style hotdog pizza, a Thanksgiving dinner pizza, or a mac-and-cheese and fried chicken with a ranch and buffalo drizzle pizza.

“That one’s not as crazy as it used to be. I’ve lost a few Italian friends on that particular pie,” Dempsey said, adding, “We have an entire collection that were constantly working on. It makes it fun.”

Today marks the beginning of a new adventure in Brookings for Dempsey and his employees, which is expected to be between 23 and 25 people when the restaurant is fully staffed.

“We’re family friendly, but we very much have a you walk up to a counter, you’re going to order one of our pizzas, a pint, a Pepsi, something to go,” Dempsey said. “We’re going to have a patio, we’re going to have overflow seating on the other side of the mall (and) we’ve got 28 seats here. So, a smaller concept, but something we can pump pizzas out.”

— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.