On Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, inside the American Indian Center, a small café is making a big impact. Gatherings Café, led by Executive Chef Vernon DeFoe of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, is a place where Indigenous food traditions are not just preserved but shared daily with the community.
The café’s menu is a celebration of heritage: bison tacos, Three Sisters Salad (corn, beans, and squash), wild rice cakes with strawberry cream. Each dish is thoughtfully crafted to reflect ancestral knowledge while remaining affordable for families and individuals who come through the doors.
For DeFoe, the mission goes far beyond flavor. After training under acclaimed Indigenous chef Sean Sherman at the Indigenous Food Lab, he saw food as medicine—something that can restore balance, strengthen cultural identity, and build bridges across generations.
“Through the café, I want to help normalize better eating—bison, squash, wild rice in fridges,” DeFoe told Minnesota Native News. “This isn’t just about healthy food. It’s about reclaiming who we are.”
More than a restaurant, Gatherings Café acts as a cultural hub. Families gather here before community events. Elders meet for meals that remind them of their childhood kitchens. Young people are introduced to flavors and traditions they may not have experienced before.
The café partners with local urban farms and food sovereignty movements, sourcing ingredients like wild rice and native squash. It also hosts cooking demonstrations and workshops to teach the next generation about Indigenous food systems.
As part of its mission, Gatherings Café goes beyond serving meals by teaching. The team offers hands-on and virtual food demonstrations that reconnect participants with ancestral practices—everything from the history of traditional ingredients to lessons in foraging and home cooking. These sessions often partner with other Minneapolis American Indian Center programs, such as the Culture Language Arts Network and Native Fitness and Nutrition, ensuring that food education is woven together with language, culture, and wellness.
Gatherings Café has also become a gathering point for advocacy and remembrance. Each year on February 14, the Minneapolis Indigenous community marks the Day of Action and Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People. It’s a day rooted in both mourning and a call for justice—when families and neighbors march through snow and cold to demand recognition of lives stolen.
On that day, the café lived up to its name. Community members streamed in from the march to share food, stories, and support. The café was packed, filled with voices honoring loved ones who had gone missing or whose lives were taken. Chef Vernon DeFoe spent the day passing out steaming bowls of chili, making sure everyone had warmth in their hands as they gathered to mourn, to remember, and to find strength in one another.
For DeFoe, these moments are central to the mission of Gatherings. Food, he believes, is not only nourishment but also a vehicle for justice and connection.
“It’s nice that I work at a nonprofit and got paid to feed everybody at the march,” DeFoe reflected. “That’s way more fulfilling to me.”
While the stories shared that day carried grief, they also underscored the resilience and solidarity of a community determined to fight for visibility and equity. Gatherings Café stood as a hub for that strength—a reminder that food can fuel both body and movement, offering comfort in moments of deep need.
The impact goes beyond plates of food. Gatherings Café actively addresses food insecurity, offering affordable meals in an area where healthy options can be scarce. By serving Indigenous dishes at accessible prices, the café helps strengthen both nutrition and identity.
The Minneapolis American Indian Center, which houses the café, recently underwent renovations to expand community programming, ensuring that Gatherings remains at the heart of cultural, educational, and wellness initiatives in the city.
Every bison taco sold, every bowl of wild rice shared, is a reminder that these traditions endure and thrive.
“Gatherings is where food tells our story,” said DeFoe. “It’s about nourishing our people in every sense.”
Gatherings Café is proof that food is more than sustenance—it’s identity, memory, and connection. By blending affordable meals with cultural preservation, Chef DeFoe has created a space where Indigenous traditions are not only remembered but lived, nourishing both community and culture.
Planning a trip to Minneapolis, or you live in the Twin Cities but have yet to gather with friends at Gatherings Cafe yet? Click the following links to their website and Facebook page for more information, hours of operation, menus and more!
