The Bannock Lady on the move due to rent increase

By Rick Garrick

MURILLO — The Bannock Lady, Jeannette Posine, has closed her shop in Thunder Bay’s Intercity Shopping Centre (ISC) due to an increase in rent and is now focusing on her catering service and food truck business.

“In order to keep this space, I would have to pay a lot more for my rent there,” says Posine, a Pays Plat citizen who opened up her shop in the ISC about four years ago. “It worked out fine, but I was not cooking at that space because I have a commercial kitchen on our property at home in Murillo. So I was cooking and going to the (ISC) space daily.”

Posine says she is now offering her catering service from her space in Murillo.

“Once they [order], I just bring the food to them,” Posine says.

Posine says she will be taking her food truck to events in Thunder Bay such as the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition, Fort William Historical Park’s Anishinaabe Keeshigun, Wake the Giant Music Festival, and local pow wows.

“I will be attending the Wake the Giant event that’s coming up on Sept. 6 and then after that, my food truck will be put away until the spring,” Posine says. “Then I will start up again and I will be attending most of the city events … like Summer in the Park. I will be at July 1 at Fort William Historical Park, I will be at Ribfest 2026, as well as Wake the Giant again. And I will be attending some of the First Nation pow wows, like the Red Rock Indian Band pow wow.”

Posine says she serves her bannock, both baked and fried, soups, bannock burgers, and Indian tacos through her catering service to organizations and businesses that want to provide some Indigenous foods at their meetings and to families for their birthday parties.

“They just email me and we set up times and dates,” Posine says, noting that her contact email is jeanette.posine@gmail.com.

Posine says her bestselling soup is the chicken wild rice soup.

“I get my wild rice locally,” Posine says. “We have other soups that are geared to what the customer would like. We custom make their dinners, their lunches, et cetera.”

Posine says she first introduced her bannock to the community of Thunder Bay more than 20 years ago when she was operating the concession stand at Chippewa Park, which is located on Lake Superior south of Thunder Bay.

“People would come to Chippewa just to get the big bannock or the fried bannock that was part of the Indian tacos and the bannock burgers,” Posine says.

Posine says it was difficult to get her shop going at first after opening it in the ISC.

“But because of my following, that’s what made it successful,” Posine says. “And a lot of people from the northern communities that came here for medical reasons, they would come to Intercity and they realized I was there, or they found out I was there and they would come there for their lunches or their suppers.”

Posine says she plans to look at where her business is going over the next few months.

“Intercity was the best location that I found,” Posine says. “I looked for a number of years to find that space.”

Posine says they are usually a big hit at the events they attend with the food truck.

“Our prices are very reasonable,” Posine says, noting that their biggest sellers are the tacos in a bag, bannock burgers, and Indian tacos. “I look forward to being in the community still. I’m not going away.”