Minneapolis’s Gatherings Café Gives the Indigenous Community a Vital Meeting Place | Eater Twin Cities
"Inside the Minneapolis American Indian Center, the café greets visitors with newspapers in Ojibwe and Dakota and a large gathering place reminiscent of traditional Ojibwe architecture where people can eat, talk, and learn about Indigenous food and culture. Run by executive chef Vernon DeFoe, a member of the Red Cliff Anishinaabe, its mission is one of service and DeFoe’s culinary philosophy reflects the deep responsibility he feels to the Native community. The menu sticks with familiar presentations—sandwiches, tacos, salads, cakes, and muffins—all featuring Indigenous ingredients: the bison melt and bison tacos are the most popular items, alongside fish melts, a 3 Sisters Salad with squash, hominy, beans, and a maple vinaigrette, pumpkin wild rice pancakes, and veggie hashes for breakfast. DeFoe emphasizes accessibility and education: "Sometimes people have never had bison before and they don’t really know what they’re eating," and "We’re trying to keep that price point as low as we can," because "We’re not trying to make money. It’s for the community." While he would like to occasionally use the space for tasting menus or thematic pop–up dinners, he says, "It would be really cool, but it’s not the priority. It’s on the fancier side and I feel like most of the Indigenous restaurants, that’s kind of what they’re trying to go for. And I like to go out to eat at fancy restaurants," adding that "the whole point is to share the food with the community, and not everybody can afford a pop-up dinner, especially in the Native community." Desserts are a highlight—especially a wild rice cake with strawberry cream made from wild rice flour they mill themselves—and the café also sells pastries at the Indigenous-focused Four Sisters Farmers Market. DeFoe notes they mill cornmeal and a wheat berry called moik pilkan and explains, "It’s colonial, but also Indigenous people used and thrived on it, since like the 1600s down in what’s now called Arizona." DeFoe’s background (first job at Dairy Queen, stints at Minneapolis restaurants including the now-closed Common Roots Cafe where he met Sean Sherman, later joining Sherman’s Sioux Chef and leading outreach at the North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems Indigenous Food Lab) informs the kitchen’s emphasis on precolonial foods and community work; he was hired in 2023 when the center renovated and expanded its mission. The café partners with local initiatives such as the Little Earth Urban Farm and, in partnership with the University of Minnesota, is starting an aquaponics lab to increase access to Indigenous nutritional foods and to harvest walleye and perch after their complete lifecycle to benefit agricultural projects—"It feels awesome because essentially we’re all there to work for the community and we’re all doing it in different ways," DeFoe says. Operationally, the spot currently serves breakfast from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Monday through Friday and is open roughly 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays; DeFoe wants to add weekend brunch and to begin external catering (right now catering is limited to events at the center). The café has become a central part of the Indigenous community—serving as a meeting point and source of food, warmth, and solidarity during events such as the February 14 march for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women—"I’m pretty sure that was the most packed I’ve ever seen the building," DeFoe says, and he spent the day passing out chili to keep folks warm. The reporting preserves the painful context that motivates much of the work: community members like Casey Anderson say the police response to her sister Rebecca Anderson’s 2015 attack was "nothing," and Lillian Whipple says of her missing cousin Mato Dow, "They still haven’t found him and there’s no leads. My cousin and his mom had to fight to even get him on the news," adding, "There’s never no justice. Because everybody’s still going missing. There’s never no justice for anybody." Despite pride, creativity, and connections across Indigenous-owned businesses nearby (including a coffee shop a block away), DeFoe acknowledges continued barriers: "It’s hard to get people to invest capital in Indigenous restaurants," he says, and marketing is a weakness he wants to address—yet he finds the work deeply rewarding: "It’s nice that I work at a nonprofit and got paid to feed everybody at the march," he says. "That’s way more fulfilling to me." - Nylah Iqbal Muhammad
