Robert Rice, owner of the Frybread Factory, seen with his truck on Franklin Avenue and 15th Avenue S. in Minneapolis on June 27, 2025.
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Mariah Grant was brainstorming ways to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Trickster Tacos food truck, which travels to powwows and other Native events in the Twin Cities and beyond.
In September, she put out a Facebook post to gauge interest in a food truck festival. Less than a year later, she’s launching the state’s first Native American Food Truck Festival this Saturday at Harriet Island in St. Paul.
“We’re expecting a big turnout,” Grant said. “I thought it was only going to be 1,000 people and I was going to be happy with that. But I think we’re going to see well more than that.”
In addition to food trucks, the festival will feature eight live musical performances, including powwow dancers, drummers from the Ain Dah Yung Center, poets from Indigenous Roots, the Pretendians Band, comedian Deanna StandingCloud and more.
Steven D’s, Blue Hummingbird Woman and Niniijaanis One of Ones are also helping to organize it.
Most trucks will be selling frybread in one form or another, but Grant said that won’t lead to saturation since frybread recipes tend to change depending on who makes it.
“So here’s the thing, Natives, every recipe that you make for frybread is different — across the nation. You can get it up here, and it’s going to be fatter and fluffier and sweeter. And then you go down to the southern states, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, that’s going to be a flatter, bigger bread,” Grant said.
The festival coincides with Taste of Minnesota in downtown Minneapolis, a two-day food and music festival that draws more than 100,000.
Grant said the Native Food Truck Festival could be an alternative stop for people wanting some good food outside of Minneapolis.
“I was concerned at first, and then I looked at my socials, and my socials are outgrowing Taste of Minnesota,” Grant said.
Grant said the difference between waiting in long lines and being in huge crowds versus having a more relaxed environment could be a turning point for attendees.
Weather could also affect turnout. Thunderstorms were in the forecast for Saturday, but Grant said her festival will set up rain or shine.
Growth of Native food trucks
Saturday’s event will be a showcase of the growth of Native-owned food trucks in the Twin Cities area, according to Grant.
Grant and her husband started Trickster Tacos during the pandemic when powwows were canceled and they wanted to provide comfort food to their Native community on St. Paul’s East Side. They had little competition.
“Even if you go back only five years ago, you probably would have only found maybe three or four Native trucks [in the metro],” Grant said.
That’s changed. The majority of the food trucks featured at the festival are locally owned. But some are coming from as far as Rapid City, South Dakota.
Robert Rice opened the Pow Wow Grounds coffee shop on Franklin Avenue, in the heart of the Minneapolis Native community, in 2010. A year ago, Rice bought his own food truck, the Frybread Factory, which he parks in front of his coffee shop.
“With the amount of catering I’ve done, it made sense to get something mobile, something I can go to powwows in,” he said.
An illustration on the side of the Frybread Factory food truck, seen on June 27, 2025.
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Frybread Factory sells Indian tacos, wojapi bites, fries, onion rings, frybread-crusted corn dogs and burgers. The truck is adorned with paintings of Native American community members who used to frequent Pow Wow Grounds. Rice said it was important for him to showcase his community on his truck.
“When I’m done, I’m turning all this stuff over to my employees so I wanted the people to still be there,” Rice said.
Frybread Factory will be at the festival on Saturday, Rice said.
Grant said most Native-owned trucks focus on catering or special events. Trickster Tacos does 90% of its business on Native land.
Grant said the local “powwow trail” consists of several events in and outside of Minnesota. The state is home to 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes and several more are located in neighboring states.
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community holds the largest powwow in Minnesota, according to Grant, drawing tens of thousands of people.
It’s through those powwows that Grant made the connections to other food truck owners that are now part of her festival.
Dreaming of Year 2 and more
While Saturday’s food truck festival on Harriet Island is Grant’s first since launching Trickster Tacos, it’s not her first time organizing an event of this kind.
As an insurance agent, she organized food truck fests to network with other businesses. Her largest, in St. Cloud, drew 6,000 people, she said.
This festival has been a self-funded effort. Trickster Tacos and other organizers have been the main sponsors, and food trucks and vendors were charged a fee to participate.
The sponsorship money and fees were mostly spent on booking performers, Grant said.
If the Native Food Truck Festival succeeds in its first year, Grant would like to see it grow. She’s already thinking of reaching out to Mystic Lake, Treasure Island and other Native-owned casinos to help cover some of the costs.
And she’s dreaming of other events to market it.
“I’m going to try to do a frybread showcase or showdown or competition, maybe, I don’t know yet. I do want to invite a lot of frybread trucks, like from South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Colorado, but that takes more time and planning,” she said.
Myah Goff contributed to this report.
Native American Food Truck Festival
Date: Saturday, July 5
Time: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Location: Harriet Island Regional Park, 49 Harriet Island Road, St. Paul
Cost: Free
For more information: Visit facebook.com/events/1642389746659402.
The post At Minnesota’s first Native American Food Truck Festival, frybread is on the menu appeared first on Sahan Journal.
