The “Native Business Top 50 Entrepreneurs” list serves to elevate awareness of the innovation, professionalism, competence and tenacity demonstrated by Native entrepreneurs across Indian Country. Native Business is rolling out profiles of these 50 Native entrepreneurs online, in no particular hierarchy, to document and memorialize their innovation and self-determination. The inaugural class of the Native Business Top 50 Entrepreneurs recognizes leaders across 13 business sectors, demonstrating the diversity of industries where Natives are making an impact. Among the entrepreneurs recognized in our Food sector is Sean Sherman. 

Chef Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota founder of “The Sioux Chef,” is on a mission. He wants to help indigenous peoples across the world reclaim their ancestral food knowledge, while creating sustainable economies around indigenous foodways.

Sherman and his tight-knit, indigenous Sioux Chef team, including co-owner Dana Thompson, are working on two major projects in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area. This summer, they plan to debut the first of many Indigenous Food Labs, featuring a nonprofit restaurant. The following year, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, a for-profit restaurant, is scheduled to open in the popular Water Works park pavilion.

The Sioux Chef restaurant will churn out healthy, indigenous foods, primarily from the Minneapolis-St. Paul region — cutting out foods not ancestral to Turtle Island, like wheat flour, dairy, processed cane sugar, and even beef, pork and chicken.

“We prioritize our purchasing from indigenous vendors first, and then use a lot of partners and growers growing indigenous foods in our region,” Sherman said.

Meanwhile, the premiere Indigenous Food Lab will help to create opportunity for indigenous foodpreneurs: chefs, producers, educators and other food industry professionals. The live, nonprofit restaurant will feature a classroom kitchen, created through The Sioux Chef’s existing 501(c)3, NATIFS (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems). 

In 2019, the James Beard Foundation awarded Sherman another honor, a Leadership Award. Last year, his cookbook The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen won the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook.