Gatherings Cafe
Cafe · Ventura Village
1530 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55404
Highlights
Indigenous eatery with bison melts & wild rice bowls
Indigenous eatery with bison melts & wild rice bowls
"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
"A café led by Diné chef Brian Yazzie, known for Indigenous dishes like Red Lake walleye tacos and wild-rice salad. It is located at the Minneapolis American Indian Center." - Nylah Burton Nylah Burton Nylah Burton is a Chicago-based lifestyle writer who covers health, travel, identity, and social justice. Her original reporting and essays have appeared in New York magazine, Essence, Bustle, Travel + Leisure, The Nation, V
"Gatherings Cafe is one Native American eatery where you won’t find fry bread or other “commods,” slang for government commodities among indigenous populations. You won’t find sugary sodas either—just infused water and tea. The absence of these items from the cafe’s offerings is, in a way, the point. Nestled within the Minneapolis American Indian Center, this cafe looks to untangle colonial narratives from the story of indigenous foodways by emphasizing pre-contact ingredients. After attending a craft workshop or visiting the center’s art gallery, choose from breakfast options such as a Red Lake Walleye Benny—with pike-perch cakes on wild rice bread with red pepper aioli—or a sweet potato cake with rosemary, wild rice, and maple syrup. Bison, which is braised for 48 hours with 11 different spices, anchors the lunch spread. The Bison Melt gets blueberry horseradish and provolone, while the BBLT gets bison, bacon, lettuce, and tomato with a sun-dried tomato aioli. While the cafe’s menu casts a warm glance at Native American culinary history without the stain of colonial oppression, it does so to make way for a brighter, healthier future with their wholesome offerings." - ATLAS_OBSCURA
"This café, located inside a Minneapolis community center, was repurposed during the pandemic into a community kitchen that prepared roughly 250 hot meals a day for elders using about 50% native ingredients. Under new leadership it centers Indigenous food sovereignty and sustainability, prioritizing hiring Indigenous womxn and creating a gender- and nonbinary-balanced kitchen, and runs an internship program led by a Ho-Chunk Nation manager to teach Indigenous cooking and fundamental food knowledge. The operation partners with Indigenous farmers, ranchers, and purveyors to source native ingredients, adapts recipes to avoid nonnative items (for example, developing palm-size berry tartlets with crisp shells made of wild rice and dairy- and refined-sugar-free desserts), and plans to expand into sit-down dinners showcasing community-focused dishes such as berry tartlets and a seared salmon with smoky tomatillo salsa." - ByBrian Yazzie
"Update as of November 2023: The cafe is closed indenfinintly undergoing renovations. Gatherings Cafe is one Native American eatery where you won’t find fry bread or other “commods,” slang for government commodities among indigenous populations. You won’t find sugary sodas either—just infused water and tea. The absence of these items from the cafe’s offerings is, in a way, the point. Nestled within the Minneapolis American Indian Center, this cafe looks to untangle colonial narratives from the story of indigenous foodways by emphasizing pre-contact ingredients. After attending a craft workshop or visiting the center’s art gallery, choose from breakfast options such as a Red Lake Walleye Benny—with pike-perch cakes on wild rice bread with red pepper aioli—or a sweet potato cake with rosemary, wild rice, and maple syrup. Bison, which is braised for 48 hours with 11 different spices, anchors the lunch spread. The Bison Melt gets blueberry horseradish and provolone, while the BBLT gets bison, bacon, lettuce, and tomato with a sun-dried tomato aioli. While the cafe’s menu casts a warm glance at Native American culinary history without the stain of colonial oppression, it does so to make way for a brighter, healthier future with their wholesome offerings. None" - Collector of Experiences, collinqburke, lukefater
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