By Corvo Rohwer
A new fine dining restaurant, Ms. Jane’s, located within BJ’s Bingo & Gaming, celebrated its ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 9.
Opened by Puyallup Tribal Members Shawn and Joshua Turnipseed, they aim to honor the past through food and family.
“We wanted to emulate the elegance, grace and demeanor of our grandmother, Bertha Jane,” Shawn said.
Attendees were greeted by drumming and song performed by David Turnipseed, along with members of the Puyallup Language Department before being welcomed in following the cutting of the ribbon by Bertha Jane herself.
Having previously opened a café on BJ’s gaming floor, Shawn said she was excited to keep the family name theme going when exploring a new venue.
“The original idea was to have an additional café restaurant area that we could have for sit down dining, besides our café that we have downstairs. … Our other food outlet is named after our grandfather, Mr. Rays, and that was his middle name so we thought we would stick with the tradition,” Shawn said.
Hosting a warm ambiance, the walls of the restaurant are adorned with Native American-inspired paintings, extending the Puyallup culture beyond just the food.
“The murals in the main dining room feature a portrait of our grandmother, BJ, and the baskets are her baskets that she has collected over her 94 years on this planet. … We had the artist go and interview her, and this was the concept for the art that he developed,” Shawn said.
While much of their menu is not an overt representation of traditional meals, they instead pivoted in a different direction to incorporate culture into their food.
“Back when we first started talking about menu development our goal was to have a bunch of Native American dishes, and with the guidance of our grandmother she said, ‘Well, I don’t think the public is ready for that. I think that where you guys need to start is using Native American ingredients and introducing that as a concept to bring people in and introduce them,” Shawn said.
Following suit, Joshua said he already has plans to bring this idea directly into the kitchen stating,
“We use some of the tools that we would have used in the past, such as our Josper oven,” he said. “Our Josper oven was selected specifically because it is a charcoal oven – it is cooked over wood. It reflects that taste, that nuance of being cooked outdoors over fire. You taste the fire when you have our salmon, you get a grasp of the way that we used to be. … We’re excited to use things like sea beans and goose tongue, which is a plant not an actual goose tongue. Stuff that people aren’t used to seeing in our area.”
Joshua said he is excited to incorporate heritage into his food and provide guests an opportunity for learning through his culinary expertise.
“In reading a book of our people from back in the day, the way we used to hunt our ducks. They used to weave these nets out of cedar and the adults would stand on one side of the river and the children would stand on the other and they would make a call,” he said. “Then, the children would start running at the river as fast as possible, making a bunch of noise. The ducks would fly off and the adults would stand up and catch them in the nets as they were flying away. Our amuse-bouche is to honor that kind of dish, which is a filo dough tart shell with carrot puree, horse radish, duck confit and a twill netting that goes over the duck, catching the duck if you will.”
He also mentioned the menu is seasonal, and will change over time to accommodate new ingredients and stories.
He hopes that Ms. Jane’s will be a place that people can come to celebrate both food and culture equally.
“Food can be such a vessel to teach people, not only just feed their belly with what tastes good, but using this teaches them in a way of what we are,” he said.
The official opening of the restaurant is set for Thursday, Aug. 22.
