A feeling of home: Skoden Coffee reopens in Phoenix
Jalen Woody | Navajo Times
In the bright light, the Skoden Coffee & Tea team stands together in front of their coffee bar at For The People furniture store in Phoenix.
PHOENIX – Phoenicians and coffee connoisseurs looking for a fresh take on caffeinated beverages can visit Skoden Coffee & Tea, which is reopening in Phoenix after its closure in Window Rock. It is tucked between Camelback Road and Central Avenue in Uptown, inside a furniture store that values functionality and uniqueness.
Jalen Woody | Navajo Times
The hands of the Skoden Coffee & Tea team dressed in Navajo attire rest next to each other, pouring a cup of coffee, holding a cup, and grasping tightly to a cup with a “land back” sticker attached to the top.
Natasha John became the company’s sole owner after her partner, Daniel Tullie, left the business established at Chʼíhootso Indian Market Place earlier this year. John is Naakaii Dine’é and born for Tł’ááshchí’í. Her cheii is Bit’ahnii and her nálí is Táchii’nii.
John says that coffee is one of the most colonized products and calls her team “a collective” because it is all Indigenous and wants to work in a space that would celebrate its heritage.
Jalen Woody | Navajo Times
Skoden Coffee & Tea owner Natasha John and shop baristas sit together dressed in their brightly colored Diné attire, sipping and pouring coffee and posing for the camera.
“Skoden Coffee has evolved just like me,” said John. “We went through something very heartbreaking. But out of our ache, something even more beautiful was born. What kept me going is our followers and this collective we created among ourselves.”
Read the full story in the Jan. 4 edition of the Navajo Times.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow