success story
Fulfilling food truck fantasies
Ike’s Place Coffee brings entrepreneurship to the reservation
On the reservation of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, just north of Bayfield on the shores of Lake Superior, Ike’s Place Coffee is amping up Tribal members and visitors with specialty coffee drinks and breakfast and lunch sandwiches.
Ike’s Place Coffee serving up coffee drinks early in the morning.
How about a caramel apple macchiato along with a burger stacked with egg, cheese, and Ike’s own smoky coffee bacon jam? Or wild rice egg rolls with a maple syrup-sweetened sugar bush latte?
First-time entrepreneur Brittany Gordon opened Ike’s Place Coffee on May 25, 2025. It took two years of planning and some big changes along the way, she says. “It was scary. I didn’t know if I was capable of doing this. It was very overwhelming.”
Gordon has been creating custom cakes for friends, family, and Tribal events for three years, so her first concept was to equip a food trailer as a pop-up bakery, offering cupcakes and fudge.
But soon, she pivoted to coffee—not just the standard, everyday brew but espresso drinks with a special flair. “Everybody likes coffee,” Gordon says. “There was a very high demand for it. There was nothing like this in the area for Tribal members.” As work on the trailer progressed, she decided to add food.
“I visited so many coffee places and sampled many types of syrups and sandwiches. It took a lot of testing to come up with my ideas,” she says. “Now, half of our revenue is from food.”
Tackling challenges
Gordon has had plenty of challenges to overcome. A business school student at the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University and an employee of the planning department for the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, she is also a single mother of four children and a survivor of family trauma. Members of her community—and even some of her own relatives—tried to discourage her from forging ahead on her own.
But she pressed forward anyway. “I figured it was time to build my own plan. I’ve been learning each step of the way. Connecting to resources and with like-minded people is what got me here,” Gordon says.
One of the key resources was Indianpreneurship, a personalized business training program offered by Black River Falls-based Cedar Grove, a state chartered not-for-profit Native community development financial institution, in connection with First Nations Financial. Gordon took a daylong course that taught her the big picture of business planning, complementing what she has learned in her classes.
The program’s added lure: a participant who is a Tribal member can receive a loan of up to $100,000—and if the startup meets certain goals, half of the loan amount will be forgiven.
Brittany Gordon, and her little helper, getting ready to open Ike’s Place food truck.
For Gordon, who grew up with the minimalist financial philosophy of making do with whatever you have, the thought of a sizable loan that would not have to be completely repaid greatly expanded her vision.
“At first, I was going to cut corners. But when I learned that money was available, I thought ‘Wait, I can really do this.’ And I wanted to do it right,” she said.
With financial guidance from the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center, Gordon landed a loan from First Nations Financial and invested some of her own money in order to buy a custom-made trailer. It took a year of planning and another year for the loan to go through and the food truck to be built and delivered.
The Wisconsin Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Great Lakes Intertribal Council joined forces on Gordon’s behalf and provided grants to buy kitchen supplies and electric generators, and helped pay for radio advertisements and billboards to publicize Ike’s Place Coffee.
When the food cart opened for business in May, “my whole community showed up. We had lines of people waiting. Everything I planned actually became real,” Gordon says.
Building dreams
By October, Ike’s Place had four employees and had passed a crucial test: getting approval to forgive half of her loan. The lender team visited the food trailer and confirmed that Gordon had fulfilled her promise to operate a fully staffed mobile kitchen with a complete menu. “Everything I said I would do happened,” she says.
Gordon, who grew up on the Red Cliff reservation, feels that she is paying tribute to her grandparents, Ike and Toddy, who started the Tribe’s pow-wow nearly 50 years ago and also ran a bed-and-breakfast and sold coffee and snacks. Coincidentally, their venture also was called Ike’s Place, she recently learned.
Now, Gordon wants to fire up more Tribal entrepreneurs. She tells them to work on an idea that solves a problem or fills a need, and she advises patience and endurance.
“When I talk to others, I tell them that some days it’s going to feel like it’s completely pointless and it’s not going anywhere. But as long as you check one thing off the list, that’s when you know it’s worth it,” she said.
Ike’s Place Coffee will go on hiatus for the winter, but the food truck will return in the spring and may also have a brick-and-mortar shop on the reservation.
Her message: “Even if you come with all sorts of challenges, it is still possible to accomplish your dreams.”
“Even if you come with all sorts of challenges, it is still possible to accomplish your dreams.”
