logo
Sean Sherman's Indigenous Food Lab is leaving Midtown Global Market

Sean Sherman's Indigenous Food Lab is leaving Midtown Global Market

Yahoo04-06-2025
Sean Sherman's Indigenous Food Lab is leaving Midtown Global Market originally appeared on Bring Me The News.
The Indigenous Food Lab Market from NATIFS, the nonprofit founded by "Sioux Chef" Sean Sherman, is leaving the Midtown Global Market on June 7.
It will move into the group's Wóyute Thipi Building in the former Seward Co-op Creamery at 2601 Franklin Ave. S in Minneapolis. NATIFS announced its acquisition of the building earlier this year.
When completed, it will also house a commissary kitchen for producing Indigenous foods for public schools and hospitals, NATIFS offices, coworking space for Indigenous and other BIPOC businesses, and its new ŠHOTÁ Indigenous BBQ by Owamni restaurant.
The Indigenous Food Lab Market, a cafe and retail space with Indigenous-made products, opened in the Midtown Global Market in 2023. It was founded as part of NATIFS' overall mission to foreground sustainable, Indigenous food culture.
The nonprofit recently announced that the Indigenous Food Lab will expand to Bozeman, Mont., with hopes of opening in late 2025.
An opening date for the market at the Wóyute Thipi Building has not yet been announced. Its production kitchen will remain at Midtown Global Market, and its food education initiatives will remain active, NATIFS said in an announcement.This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Jun 3, 2025, where it first appeared.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

In Ecuador, environmentalists worry Noboa is unwinding nation's green reputation
In Ecuador, environmentalists worry Noboa is unwinding nation's green reputation

San Francisco Chronicle​

time7 minutes ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

In Ecuador, environmentalists worry Noboa is unwinding nation's green reputation

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — When Ecuadorians voted two years ago to block oil drilling in Yasuni National Park, it was a triumph for environmentalists seeking to protect one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. And it was in character for a country that was first to enshrine the 'rights of nature' in its constitution and is home to parts of the Amazon rain forest and the Galápagos Islands. But recent moves by President Daniel Noboa have alarmed environmentalists and Indigenous leaders who say the country's green reputation — and its protections for civil society — are unraveling. Noboa's administration has moved to scrap the country's independent Environment Ministry. It's pushing legislation ostensibly aimed at choking off illegal mining, but which critics fear will devastate nonprofits. The National Assembly — pressed by Noboa — approved a law last month allowing private and foreign entities to co‑manage conservation zones that critics say weakens protections and threatens Indigenous land rights. And Ecuador just signed a new oil deal with Peru that could accelerate drilling in sensitive areas. Natalia Greene, an environmental advocate with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, said Noboa's decision to fold the Environment Ministry into the Ministry of Energy and Mines will speed up mining just as Ecuador is grappling with a surge in illegal gold mining tied to organized crime. She called it 'like putting the wolf in charge of the sheep.' 'The government's intention is very clear — to be a machine gun of extractivism,' she said. Noboa has defended the ministry moves and other changes as necessary to cut costs, reduce bureaucracy and address Ecuador's financial crisis. Officials argue that consolidating ministries will make decision‑making more efficient. Neither the Ministry of Energy and Mines nor Noboa's office responded to questions from The Associated Press. In July, Peru and Ecuador signed a deal for Ecuador's state oil company to sell crude directly to Petroperu and link its southern Amazon reserves to Peru's Norperuano pipeline, with drilling eyed for January 2026. Environmental groups say it could fast‑track drilling in sensitive areas while skirting safeguards and Indigenous consultation. Peru's Achuar, Wampis and Chapra nations denounced the plan in a public letter, saying it would gut long-standing protections that require communities be consulted before projects move forward on their lands. They warned the pipeline already averages 146 spills a year and that expanding it would be 'a grave threat to the Amazon and to Indigenous livelihoods.' 'They are going to violate all our rights to enter our territories and extract the resources they want," said Nemo Guiquita, a Waorani leader with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. She said Indigenous communities fear a surge of oil and mining projects across ancestral lands, threatening both ecosystems and livelihoods. 'There will be a weakening of environmental protection,' she said. 'There will be a lot of deforestation, contamination of rivers and destruction of the ecosystem, which is vital for our existence as Indigenous peoples.' Ricardo Buitrón, president of the Quito‑based environmental group Accion Ecologica, noted that the changes come just months after Ecuadorians voted to keep oil in the ground in Yasuni, a decision the government has yet to fully enforce. 'We have gone back decades,' he said. 'A development model is being prioritized that does not care about protecting ecosystems, but about extracting natural resources to the maximum.' Fears that proposed law will harm non-governmental organizations The proposed law that has alarmed nonprofits is formally called the Organic Law for the Control of Irregular Capital Flows. But activists call it the 'anti-NGO' law, saying it could impose heavy burdens on nonprofits and force many to close. The measure applies to more than 71,000 organizations nationwide, giving them six months to re‑register with the government, submit detailed financial records and disclose foreign funding sources. The government says the law is needed to prevent money laundering and political destabilization. Critics warn it could instead silence dissent by placing organizations under sweeping controls. Noboa submitted the bill to the National Assembly on July 29, giving lawmakers until Aug. 28 to act before it automatically becomes law. 'This has been hard for us,' Guiquita said. 'Practically, Indigenous organizations live mostly from donations and NGOs. The government is weakening us in every space.' 'It represents a threat because they could dissolve us under any pretext,' Buitrón said. 'This reminds us of what we already lived through a decade ago, when they tried to shut down some organizations in the country.' Regional and global stakes Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for Indigenous rights and environmental protection in the Amazon, said the country's changes are part of a wider rollback. 'We are seeing a sweeping package of regressive reforms that are rolling back environmental protections, Indigenous rights guarantees, and threatening basic civil liberties like the freedom of speech and assembly,' he said. 'What it suggests is the massive expansion of oil and mining, particularly in the Amazon region.' Koenig said the changes send troubling signals ahead of COP30, the United Nations climate summit set for Brazil later this year. Similar trends are unfolding in Peru and El Salvador, where governments have limited environmental oversight, and in Brazil, where licensing for Amazon projects has been weakened. Mobilizing resistance Civil society groups are mobilizing against the changes. Greene said organizations have reactivated the Asamblea Nacional Socioambiental, a national coalition of environmental and social movements, and are planning legal challenges, demonstrations and appeals to international bodies. Many fear Ecuador's role as a global green pioneer is unraveling. 'Our only crime here has been protecting our territory, protecting our traditions, protecting our way of life,' Guiquita said. ___

Why San Francisco's Go-To Spot for Matcha Is A Bookstore by the Beach
Why San Francisco's Go-To Spot for Matcha Is A Bookstore by the Beach

Eater

timean hour ago

  • Eater

Why San Francisco's Go-To Spot for Matcha Is A Bookstore by the Beach

It's Monday at one p.m. and the bookstore near Ocean Beach is booming with customers. There are elderly folk working through black coffee in the 'analog space,' a four-top table by the window. But it's the menu at the bookstore's cafe that gets all the attention. Local hitmakers Loquat, Little Bee Bakery, Dynamo Donut, and Florecita Panaderia all grace the pastry case. It's Rocky's Matcha — the only place in the city to serve the SoCal-made green tea purveyor — that earned the business a huge fanbase, though. The contrast from summer 2025 to 2022 when Blackbird moved to Irving Street is stark. Each weekend, there are long lines heading up Irving Street. More and more, a miasma of people swamp between Hook Fish Co. and Blackbird, bumping across the road. It's almost a testament to how popular this stretch of the neighborhood is these days. There's a yoga studio full of people, also in the middle of Garfield's least favorite seventh of the week. Another tipping point: the official christening of the Great Highway as Sunset Dunes in April 2025. Owner Kathryn Graham is thoughtful and slow-going in her speaking. She says the first thing that let her know her cafe was getting traction was the olive oil spelt cake. The subtle pastry blew up on TikTok. Her friends and staff let her know. Then, the matcha hive showed up. Rocky's has more than 20,000 followers on TikTok, ground zero for the finely milled green tea powder's upsurge in attention. Blackbird's cafe manager had a run-in with the Rocky's team. That fateful encounter led to Blackbird as the sole outpost for Rocky's tea. Repeat customers now come every week for the tough-to-find Los Angeles matcha. Some trek from Potrero Hill and Bayshore to get a taste of that ceremonial grade good good. 'Rocky just connected with us on this vibe level,' Graham says. 'And we thought his matcha was so amazing. We did not realize he had this massive TikTok following and that those people would find us.' Lauren Hanussak The explosion in this Sunset shop's popularity overlaps with matcha's second great global renaissance in the 21st century. In San Francisco, that looks a lot like SoMa specialty cafe Telescope Coffee launching its own tinned ceremonial matcha. It looks a lot like Cafe Shoji's matcha einspänners spawning 40-minute waits. Unfortunately, it also looks like a global shortage is driving prices up for local players, including Le Dix-Sept. Per a report from Mizuba Tea, an importer with 12 years of buying from Japan, this shortage is a 'historic moment' that has seen the country go from a two percent slice of total tea export to a boom crop, causing field turnover as everyone scrambles to keep up. Lauren Hanussak Graham, with none of that on her radar, opened the original Blackbird on Judah Street in 2017, sans cafe attachment. She used to live in New York, where she worked with a group of activists to open the bookstore Blue Stockings. After the first election of Donald Trump, she wanted to work on a project like that again, a place for her two young kids and the Outer Sunset broadly. Three Fish Studio left its Irving Street location in 2022, and they reached out to Graham when they decamped. It was twice the size of her shop, and boasted a massive backyard space. It was during that jump that she linked with the team at Four Barrel. There was no Day Moon bakery and cafe at that point, and Trouble Coffee's future was up in the air. She decided to turn part of her new shop into a cafe. In short order, people were coming and spending their whole days hanging out at Blackbird. There is a popular events arm in the space, too, harkening back to those Blue Stockings days. Open mic nights with more than 50 people, pop-ups including Malaysian pastry pop-up Batik and Baker, and children's reading hours are on almost every day. Now with the advent of Sunset Dunes, this airy space full of books and caffeine gets more and more popular all the time. 'I create space, and people fill it,' Graham says. 'What makes it work here is very little to do with me.' Lauren Hanussak Eater SF All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store