Starting at 7 a.m., customers gather at the ʔálʔal Café in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood to eat spiced blackberry muffins and sip cups of Leah’s Latte, a popular drink that uses a mixture of Ioway Bee Farm honey, cinnamon and oat milk. Inside, the cafe is adorned with Indigenous artwork and shelves are freshly stocked with Native-made products. 

The cafe is a space where people can relax, catch up with tribal elders, and deepen community bonds. In the year since Chief Seattle Club opened the ʔálʔal Café, staffers say the business is living up to its Lushootseed name, which means “home.” 

Today, the cafe serves as a central hub and gathering space where Indigenous community members, including those experiencing homelessness in downtown Seattle, can feel welcomed and be nourished by traditional foods. 

Leila Perez, an ʔálʔal Café manager, who is also a member of the Tlingit and Haida tribes, said the eatery is a space where Native people can reaffirm their heritage.  

“The space here is safe and sacred,” Perez said. “I have some customers that haven’t had rabbit stew since they were a little girl at their grandma’s house on the reservation. It fills my heart that I can give somebody that memory.”

The success of the ʔálʔal Café comes as more Native-owned businesses and organizations gain visibility across Seattle. This includes Off the Rez’s cafe inside the Burke Museum, Seattle catering business Native Soul Cuisine, retail store Eighth Generation, which relocated its flagship store to a street-facing space on First Avenue in 2023; and the yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective, which purchased land in Rainier Beach last year.

This year, the ʔálʔal Café (pronounced “all-all”) is increasing the number of precolonization-style dishes on its menu, including a stinging nettle pesto salmon bowl. They are also doubling down on their commitment to supporting Native-owned businesses and cultural-bearers by sourcing more of the cafe’s ingredients from Indigenous businesses and tribes across the U.S. and spotlighting Native artists in its rotating art exhibits and featuring more Native-made merchandise and handcrafted jewelry made by Chief Seattle club members. 

“The food that we serve tells a story,” said Leah Sainz-Jones, an ʔálʔal Café barista, who is a member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in Arizona. “That is us giving back to our relatives in our community, and having other artists bring their art in [helps] tell their stories.” 

Inside, the cafe’s latest exhibit spotlights Native artist Naomi Parker of the Chippewa Cree, Yakama and Makah Tribes, who illuminates the power of community through oil paintings. Other artwork includes “Changing of Worlds,” a mural by Roger Fernandes of the Lower Elwha Band of the S’Klallam Indians. The permanent centerpiece depicts Chief Seattle in front of Mount Tahoma, more commonly  known as Mount Rainier. This year, the cafe has added a display of handcrafted Native jewelry and art, including beaded bracelets, dreamcatchers and medicine bags created by Chief Seattle Club members.

While looking at the art, people can also enjoy a robust menu of precolonial dishes such as blue corn mush topped with wojapi, a vibrant berry sauce, and bison tacos. 

The dishes are made with traditional staples including salmon freshly caught by fisherman Ronnie Jerry, a member of the Muckleshoot and Yakama tribes; Cheyenne River Sioux bison, blue cornmeal from Navajo Pride, as well as nettle and cedar herbs gathered by Chief Seattle Club’s traditional medicine team.  

Indigenous food sovereignty, or the ability for Native people to cultivate and feed their own community with traditional foods, is part of the cafe’s larger mission that focuses on “the healing of our members who have been displaced from their lands,” said Gabriel de los Angeles, the communications manager at Chief Seattle Club and Snoqualmie Tribe member.

The cafe is part of Chief Seattle Club, which provides permanent and transitional housing for Seattle’s Indigenous community. Although Native people account for only 1% of Seattle and King County’s population, they make up 15% of the estimated total homeless population and 32% of people experiencing chronic homelessness in the region, according to a 2020 report by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.  

The cafe is also an entry point for residents to learn more about the issues that disproportionately affect Native people and build a connection with individuals experiencing homelessness or displacement, said de los Angeles. 

“Our members are their neighbors,” he said. “We take care of each other.” 

The power of Native foods

Native foods nutritionist and educator Valerie Segrest, who is a member of the Muckleshoot Tribe, said the ʔálʔal Café’s offering of traditional ingredients such as nettle, bison, salmon and wild rice reclaims Native culture and helps to reestablish ties to Northwest Native foods that were cut from Indigenous diets post-colonization. 

“So much of our cultural traditions are interlaced with our traditional foods,” Segrest said. “It’s not like we woke up one day and decided to stop eating these foods. The severing from these foods has been intentional.”

Hundreds of years of colonization further isolated Native people from their traditional foodways. In the late 1970s, the federal Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, also known as the Commodity Food Program, began providing Natives with highly processed foods such as flour, sugar and canned meat. This caused a severe disruption to Native diets that led to higher rates of diabetes, among other illnesses. These effects still linger today. 

“Most tribal communities face what we call colonial diseases and epidemics,” Segrest said. “Like diabetes, heart disease and inflammatory conditions that did not exist here precontact.” 

But, by reviving traditional ingredients and flavors in a community space, Segrest said the cafe illustrates the power of food as a mobilizer for strength, wellness and awareness for Indigenous people. 

“Food is an incredible organizing tool, and they’re animating that for all of us,” Segrest said. “The work that they’re doing is critical to helping us remember our humaneness and what it is going to take for us all to heal.”

Alana Harris, a member of the Ojibwe Tribe and cafe customer, said the cafe played a large role in helping them access Native foods such as seasonal nettle and cedar teas. Harris said their diet was once filled with processed foods that triggered symptoms of fatigue, hives and stomach pains: “It was decolonize my diet or die,” they added. 

“It’s good for our bodies and our spirits,” Harris said. “Food is love, food is medicine and food is community.”

Harris, who is also a case manager at Chief Seattle Club, said at the ʔálʔal Café they can put their shoulders down and exist without discrimination. Their clients say they also feel represented at the cafe. 

“This is our home and they don’t feel seen,” Harris said. “Having a cafe like this, where they can eat Indigenous foods and see Indigenous people makes them feel safe and happy.” 

Bringing back these traditional foods in a Native-led establishment invokes a much deeper connection, Segrest said. 

“These taste profiles actually activate our DNA,” Segrest said. “And help us remember who we are and where we come from and that’s the medicine really that we’re all looking for.” 

Tat Bellamy-Walker on Twitter: @bell_Tati. Tat Bellamy-Walker covers communities for The Seattle Times.