UTTC International Powwow food vendors essential to powwow experience

“When people come to a powwow, they want good food,” said Knight, whose truck was selling Indian tacos, burgers and fries at the United Tribes Technical College International Powwow in Bismarck, North Dakota. “We just want them to have an enjoyable experience all around.”

Knight and his brothers, White Faced Bear Roaming Fox and Farrell Knight, all citizens of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, remember eating powwow food as kids and loving it, but as adults, they felt like the food had become “subpar.”

“And we started to feel like that was becoming a lost art or something,” Knight said over the bubbling of fryer oil. “We were like, ‘How hard is it to make a cheeseburger, seriously?’”

So in 2014, the three brothers bought a food truck and started selling fresh, made-from-scratch food — handcut fries, made-to-order frybread, homemade soups and never-frozen burgers. At that first powwow, they thought business would be lacking since they were competing against vendors who had been selling powwow food for decades, said Knight, but they ended up being one of the busiest vendors there. That initial success cemented their resolve, and they’ve been selling their fresh food at the International Powwow ever since.

It takes a week of planning time and a trusted crew to make everything from scratch, said White Faced Bear Roaming Fox, but they’re no strangers to hard work.

“We came from humble beginnings,” he said. “We grew up really poor, cooking our own food, hunting the land. That was our way of survival.”

Roaming Fox and his brothers learned how to make good meals with what they had — foods like wild onions, potatoes and deer meat. He said that through cooking together, they grew to love home-cooked food, and they wanted to share that with the powwow community.

Knight said that upbringing is why they named their food truck “Blue Buttes,” the name of a landmark on the Fort Berthold Reservation where they grew up.

“We think people should be proud of where they’re from,” he said. “We like to think there’s always that connection to where you’re from. No matter where you are, there’s always a landmark or a building or family or something that people feel a connection to.”

That connection is family for a vendor selling lemonade out of a school bus parked kitty-corner to the Blue Buttes Grill. Jeff Baker, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, opened Rez Famous Lemonades with his daughter when she was in middle school.

“Originally it was her idea,” he said. “We worked on our original recipe and just started running from there.”

Now, Baker has been selling lemonade at powwows for around 25 years. He is known for his white school bus with “REZ FAMOUS LEMONADES” printed front and center in bold stencil letters over a faded “United Tribes Technical.” Strapped to the windows are handmade yellow cardboard menus that name lemonade flavors like blue “rez” berry, grape granny gangsta and crabby apple sour named after my ex.

Baker also sells his unique lemonades at car shows and other events, but powwows are his main squeeze.

“That’s our people. We enjoy it,” he said, and then added, “It gets us outside.”

A short walk away, another family-run business was selling acai bowls, smoothies and cold drinks. Beef and Jessica Archambault and their daughters, Saydee, 17, and Adlee, 12, started the Beaded Cup last year with a pop-up tent and a table.

“It was real unshika (pitiful),” said Beef. “But we saw the potential that it had.”

Jessica is an enrolled citizen of the Apsáalooke Nation and Beef, Saydee and Adlee are enrolled citizens of the Assiniboine Tribe from Fort Belknap. After their first powwow, the Archambaults bought a food truck, and, in May, started selling out of the parking lot of a local college in Poplar, Montana. This was the Beaded Cup’s first year at the International Powwow.

Beef said they started the Beaded Cup with their daughters’ futures in mind, so they always have a way to make money.

“Let’s give them something to do and make them earn it,” he said. “They’ll always have this.”

Both his daughters helped take and prepare orders on Saturday at the powwow. His oldest daughter, Saydee, is saving up for a car, said Beef, and has already put aside $4,000 from working at the food truck.

For Native-run food businesses, powwows present an opportunity to financially support their families and share their passion for good food. As the 2025 UTTC International Powwow came to a close on Sunday, all three vendors packed up and drove off the tribal college campus with a lighter truck and heavier wallets, likely planning for their next powwow.