Kekuli Cafe - Merritt

Don’t panic… they have bannock! Enjoy a taste of local, fresh Indigenous cuisine at Kekuli Café and savour traditional flavours with a modern twist. From fluffy breakfast bannocks piled high with buttery scrambled eggs, wild smoked salmon, or local farmer’s sausage to Pow Wow frybread tacos piled teepee high with tasty home-made chili or pithouse corn and black beans to garden fresh salads and sweet treats —try the Saskatoon berry bannock! — there’s something delicious for everyone. What’s in a name? Kekuli means “Pithouse” a warm winter dwelling built into the ground to protect people from the elements, that the Thompson First Nation lived in hundreds of years ago. In the Thompson language, they’re called sʔístkn; and you can still find historical Kekulis throughout the Thompson and Okanagan area today. That traditional warm welcome is something that co-owners Sharon Bond and Darren Hogg bring to the Kekuli Café, “Acknowledgment is so important in our culture,” says Sharon. “I wanted a place where everyone would feel welcome and acknowledged.” You feel that unique traditional cultural welcome as soon as you step inside: pow wow music softly plays, and Indigenous art hangs on the walls. And the bannock? It’s Sharon’s niche in the restaurant business, creating food from the homestyle ingredients that she grew up on, focussed around bannock, a ‘survival bread’ that was a staple food in the diets of Metis, First Nations, and Inuit communities. “I love how each culture has their own version of fried bread,” says Sharon. “There are so many similarities, like people, food will bring us together.”