Northern Arizona restaurant shines light on traditional Navajo food, culture [Video]

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — People online have been sharing they have a hard time finding or even knowing about traditional Native American food.

According to North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems, 3% of food markets sell Indigenous food, and only 1% of restaurants do.

Indigenous restaurants, including Arizona, can be hard to find in major cities nationwide.

However, in northern Arizona, you’ll see fry bread signs and Navajo food shops around major highways – like the Highway 89 Yummy Shack created by Matilda Means.

“Our customers are the ones that named the place for us,” Matilda said. “‘Oh, it’s yummy, yummy’ so we were on 89, and we’ll call it Highway 89 Yummy Shack.”

Matilda started the business four years ago when she moved back to the Navajo Nation to help her sick father.

“So I just quit my job and moved back home,” she said. “And before we did this, my mother used to do …