Paramount Cocktails & Food

We stumbled upon this place during the St. Patty's Day parade... it was the only place downtown not packed with green clad fools.  The décor is very cool and laidback.  

They had a special St. Patty's Day menu, I ordered the Dakota-style Shepard's Pie (made with local buffalo) and it was awesome!  My wife got bangers and mash... again, awesome.

The service was very good.

Prices seemed fair.

A few good beers on-tap and a nice selection of liquors and house mixed drinks.

A good find!

We go to The Paramount about 3 times a year and absolutely love it. The decor is moody and jazzy and the drinks and food are great. Last night we got the  Coconut Jumbo Shrimp ( Monarch Steak House- take note this is what Jumbo shrimp SHOULD BE) and the seared yellow fin tuna. The tuna was absolutely AMAZING! We highly recommend it! The Coconut Shrimp were sweet and crunchy and the sauce that came with it was delicious. My partner ordered 2 white russians, which he thought were good, I only ordered a Mello Yellow. They had a live piano player which was nice but kind of loud, so people were loud trying to talk over it. Overall this is one of our favorite classier places in Sioux Falls, there should be more places like this here for a city of this size.

I've been to the Paramount a few times now and while I love the the decor, I do not like the service or the prices. I was there the other night with my mom and her friend and we all asked about drinks that were on the happy hour menu displayed in front of us. I ordered a golden margarita and the others ordered a glass of wine each. After we ordered, the bartender took the happy hour menu away and then took our food order. My margarita was too syrupy.. meh. The bartender told us that the food would not be happy hour prices, but said nothing about the drinks. Of course, when we get our tab, my mediocre margarita was $8.50 and two glasses of wine were $18- clearly not the happy hour prices. We asked the bartender and he said the computer automatically changes over after 7pm so he couldn't do anything about it. Pretty misleading and douchey to not say, "hey ladies I want to let you know that happy hour is over." I bet we ordered at 7:02.. geez. I know it's not THAT big of a deal, but we felt manipulated. It will be a long time before we go back, if ever at all.
I'm still on the search for a good 'rita here in SF..