Montreal café aims to hire 20 Indigenous homeless people this summer

Montreal’s only Indigenous café is opening for its fourth season and this year the owners have a goal of hiring homeless people to help in the restaurant.

The Roundhouse Café is located in Cabot Square, an area where many of the city’s Indigenous homeless people live.

“We are going to offer the opportunity to twenty Indigenous people homeless people or at risk of finding themselves homeless to work, to get revenue and to get paid the same day so we are pretty proud of that project,” said Charles Éric Lavery, one of the managers.

The Roundhouse café is seasonal.

It closes in October and opens again near the end of May.

Wednesday marks the opening of the restaurant’s fourth season and more than 80 people have made reservations.

Melodie Grenier planned the Eat Indigenous themed menu.

“It is like a bagel bannock and we just put like a mix of salmon with mayonnaise with seaweed and caviar with the salad on the side and the sweet bannock with maple syrup so it is a lot of work,” said Grenier.

Innu artist Natasha Kanape Fontaine is proud to be the café’s ambassador this year.

“The round house café almost like the name is kind of a circle and everyone is part of the circle,” she said. “And everyone is working for the well-being of everyone that is my kind of thinking and that is my way making things in life I am really inspired by that project that is why I am very happy today to be celebrating the opening of this new season.

Born from a partnership between the Ville-Marie borough, and L’itineraire magazine.

The project aims to create bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

“It is not only a café it is also kind of a social project so Indigenous homeless people and people at risk to become homeless work and we have also social vocation so we also offer free meals free coffee to homeless Indigenous people,” said Lavery.

The Roundhouse café will be open all summer for anyone who is in the neighbourhood and wants to Eat Indigenous.