A Native American food truck in Rock Hill offers ‘indigenous food for the soul’
Jason and Melissa Harris travel the country touting Catawba tribal culture. Back home, they’re feeding it to people.
“We have good food and people like to eat,” Jason said. “We thought this would be a great way of sharing part of our culture with the outside community.”
The Harris family runs The Bow and Arrow food truck. The truck’s side panel describes its food as native cuisine. Melissa calls it “indigenous food for the soul,” hearkening to her grandmother’s recipes.
Both Harrises and their four children have deep ties to the more than 3,000-member Catawba Nation, South Carolina’s only federally recognized tribe.
Melissa leans on her sense of humor as new customers approach the truck. Asian, Latin or other flavors are common among the growing convoy of food trucks that roll through the Rock Hill region. Native American food is new for many people.
“People will say, ‘I’ve never heard of native cuisine,’ which is so crazy because we’re the first people here,” Melissa said. “We had to eat.”
What does The Bow and Arrow serve?
The Bow and Arrow launched last year at ChristmasVille, Rock Hill’s annual downtown Christmas celebration.
A few hundred customers braved wet weather, as the Harrises learned on the go. They sold out each day. Now they sometimes prepare thousands of portions for events. They’ve moved from neighborhood functions to more large festivals, breweries and regional events.
Several items helped the truck grow.
The “Bow” is the original, a beef and bean Indian taco. The Southwest-style “Arrow” is a chicken and green chili dish. There’s a bison Indian taco.
Frybread, popular at pow wows with honey and powdered sugar, is a staple dessert. Wojapi is an indigenous mixed berry sauce dessert.
A summer strawberries and cream frybread from Melissa’s family recipe box was meant to be seasonal. But it’s been the top seller, so the truck keeps bringing it back.
Some dishes are specific to the Catawba. Others are influenced by indigenous people across the country, just like the Harrises are.
‘Indian country’ culture on wheels
Jason was a vice chief for the Catawba, the tribe with a reservation near Rock Hill. He ran unsuccessfully for chief last year. Melissa is Head Start director for the Catawba, and is past president of the National Indian Head Start Directors Association. She also won a school board seat this fall in Rock Hill.
Those roles allowed the couple to travel the United States, or what Melissa calls “Indian country,” to learn from other pueblos, villages and reservations.
“One thing that we all have in common across Indian country is our love of frybread and Indian tacos,” Melissa said. “So that has been the foundation of our food truck.”
When diners come for the food, they often leave with a side of history.
The menu uses Catawba or other native words for thank you, hello and welcome. Customers may learn traditional terms for bison or other ingredients. If the Harrises only have a minute, the customer will learn about frybread.
Indigenous people often were given flour, water and lard when the federal government forced them off their land generations ago, Melissa said. Frybread is something people could make with those ingredients, pack and carry with them.
Frybread helped populations survive, she said, and it remains a symbol of perseverance, ingenuity and resilience.
“That’s basically how frybread came to be,” Melissa said.
Expanding the food truck menu in 2025
The food truck mostly ran around Rock Hill in its first year, both on and off the reservation. It did some catering. It served events like the Catawba Nation Fall Festival and Yap Ye Iswa, or the Day of the Catawba festival.
They’ve been invited to serve beside breweries and at the Catawba Two Kings Casino in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. There’s a large pow wow in Shelby, North Carolina, early next year, too.
Coming menu additions include a bison stew for colder weather events, plus more game foods and grains. The truck will feature more root vegetables, squash, sweet potatoes and corn next year too. All integral parts of indigenous culture, from different times and places.
“We’ve got something to offer here, too,” Jason said. “We just haven’t done it. It kind of lit a fire under us.”
Catawba culture a family heritage
The Harris family talked for years about opening a restaurant. They all like to cook.
Last year’s chief election felt like retirement for Jason, so the family started in a new direction with the truck. Three adult children and one still in high school help at events.
The Harrises look forward to growth, and they know better what to expect as they roll into a second year. They also know they’re likely to park in front of plenty of hungry people who have questions.
It would be easier to work another food truck that sells hot dogs, pizza or other dishes people expect to find at events, but that would miss the point.
“You see all these other food trucks that are representative of their cultures,” Melissa said. “And we haven’t seen one representing indigenous foods.”
There are times when customers tell the Harrises they’ve seen a recent movie or television show about indigenous people and want to try a dish mentioned on it. For someone whose two great passions are education and native culture, Melissa see those moments as opportunities to connect, one bite at a time.
“It’s feeding people, which is a basic need,” she said. “But it’s also spreading the message of Catawba and indigenous people.”
