Group looks to open Indigenous restaurant

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This article was published 25/10/2021 (1785 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After the success of Brandon’s first food truck focusing on Indigenous cuisine, a group of locals is hoping to start the city’s first sit-down restaurant based on a similar concept.

Darian and Caitlin Kennedy were both involved with the creation of the Brandon Friendship Centre’s Indigenous Eats food truck, with Darian helping to come up with the menu items and serving as one of the original managers, and Caitlin acting as a volunteer manager.

Though they’re no longer involved with the food truck, they and partners Aushya Houle, Candice Kennedy and Steven Nickle are hoping that the popularity of items like bannock tacos with locals will lead to a successful restaurant launch.

While the group is still trying to secure funding and grants available to Indigenous entrepreneurs, they’ve been hard at work on the conceptual side of things and have even started fundraising money by selling shirts emblazoned with the restaurant’s name with other goods in the works.

The Facebook page for the initiative only went up on Thursday, but it already has 396 likes and 403 followers.

Three Sisters Bannock House isn’t just a nod to the staple that will anchor their menu in both baked and fried forms, but also to the elements that make it up.

As Darian explained in a Sunday afternoon phone interview, the three “sisters” that make up bannock are its key ingredients.

“Those are the traditional recipes that have been passed down in my family for generations,” Darian said of the Indigenous Eats menu and the potential menu for the restaurant. “That’s what really inspired the Three Sisters name itself because we started using it as a term we coined, ‘pass the three sisters,’ which were the baking powder, sugar and the salt … it was our code for it.”

“It was Indigenous Eats that inspired us because we saw how big of a hit that was,” Caitlin said. “We loved selling our food to people because they would come back and have these positive comments and that encouraged us to do more with it.”

According to them, the restaurant would be aimed at the lunch and supper crowds, with healthy alternatives, some kind of breakfast menu and meal kits available as well.

Other than bannock, the Kennedys spoke of including menu items like rice and raisins and Saskatoon soup.

“It’s the food that we grew up on, the food that we love and we want everybody to understand our culture,” Darian said. “The only way we know how to promote reconciliation in our toolset is through the skills that we do have and that we were blessed with.”

The Kennedys both have connections to numerous First Nations communities in Manitoba. Darian comes from Garden Hill First Nation in the Island Lake region of northern Manitoba, with ties to Sioux Valley Dakota Nation through his grandfather, Roseau River First Nation, where his father comes from, Berens River First Nation and Long Plain First Nation.

Caitlin is from Swan Lake First Nation, where her mother is from, and has ties to Dakota Tipi First Nation through her father.

“These recipes are stuff that I remember from family feasts,” Darian said. “From when my mom taught me how to knead the bannock and the different skills that she passed on to me. It means everything because it’s how interconnected our families are because of the way we grew up and the kinships that we hold and the beliefs that we hold. It will translate into the way we work.”

According to Darian, his mother Candice is interested in creating space within whatever location they might end up in to showcase Indigenous art and music as well and give artists a place to sell their wares.

The timeline for the restaurant’s opening is currently unclear and will depend on factors like how much funding they get access to, but the Kennedys are hopeful that they can get it going by early 2022.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark