Mike Forcia, the Wolves Den, and the Best Fry Bread Tacos this side of the Mississippi River

October 19, 2010

By Sheila Regan

Where can you get the best frybread in Minneapolis? The answer is easy — ask anybody, and they’ll tell you — Mike Forcia, owner and chef at Wolves Den Coffee Shop in the Minneapolis American Indian Center makes the moistest, yummiest frybread in the area.

His secret? Forcia said that back when the Wolves Den was located across the street from where it is now, he didn’t serve frybread until an elder Indian woman came into the shop. She suggested that he serve frybread, and he told her he had tried out different recipes and hadn’t found one that would work quite right.

“She told me to throw all my recipes away,” Forcia said. “And I haven’t used a recipe ever since.” Forcia simply mixes the ingredients by feel — first the dry ingredients, then the wet, stirs them together (not too much) and cooks them up — all without ever measuring anything.

“It means so much to me when an elder says this is the best frybread in town,” Forcia said.

He also serves a darn good wild rice cheese omelet, salads and sandwiches, all at reasonable prices. Soon he’s hoping to add some healthier options to the menu, for customers struggling with diabetes. He won’t stop serving the frybread though. “As long as you exercise, you’re OK,” he said.

Perhaps it's because of his frybread, and perhaps it's because he gives so much back to the community that Forcia has won the respect of so many people who come into his eatery. Unfortunately that doesn’t always equal huge returns. “We’re a nonprofit,” he said, jokingly, “although not legally.”

Part of the problem, Forcia said is that at his current location in the American Indian Center, he can only be open until 3. He is working to change that, so that he can serve more customers during the dinner hours. He’s also working on getting better signage out front, so people who don’t know about the place might decide to check it out. He also currently offers free wireless internet, an attraction for people who might want to come in, grab a bite to eat and get some work done.

Another problem is that in the past there haven't been very many businesses along Franklin Avenue, but Forcia’s hopeful that will change soon. The recent re-branding of the avenue as the American Indian Cultural Corridor may be a sign things are looking up, potentially attracting business owners, particularly American Indian entrepreneurs, to the area.

But even if owning his own business never made him a millionaire, Forcia said he wouldn’t have done things differently because he likes working for himself and he wants to give back to the Native community.

“My community is my medicine,” Forcia said.

“It’s been 30 years since I’ve worked for myself,” he said. “I never had to work for anybody since I was a teenager.” Forcia’s first business was a doughnut shop in Mounds View that he opened with his wife in 1985 on both of their birthdays. While he enjoyed owning that business, when the opportunity arrived, he started the Wolves Den at its first location on Franklin Avenue in April of 2004. He was happy to move back to Minneapolis where he could be more a part of the community. Since February 17, The Wolves Den has been located in the American Indian Center, where Forcia serves on the board.

Being located on Franklin Avenue allows Forcia to be an integral part of the community. When there’s a funeral or event, he’s there to provide food, including his famous frybread. For a recent friend who passed away, Forcia honored her last wishes to make a buffalo roast.

For the past two years, he has provided a meal every Sunday for the homeless. At first he took it to homeless camps, but then began to serve the meal right at the Indian Center, where now sometimes 100 people show up for a full meal. “I just figure I don’t turn anyone away,” he said. Sometimes it’s breakfast food like potatoes and sausage or pancakes, or sometimes it’s dinner food like buffalo meat or frybread tacos, but no matter what, Forcia make sure that at least one day a week, people who are hungry will get fed a decent meal.

Forcia was also recently appointed as the director of the American Indian Movement Patrol, where he is already hard at work. Forcia is planning to have AIM members volunteer on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at the American Indian Center so that the gym can be open at those times.

Sheila Regan wrote this story for the Native American Community Development Institute. NACDI's comprehensive approach to building a more sustainable community in South Minneapolis is supported (in part) by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation through the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

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