Jennifer Miller and Richard Perry are pictured with Fry Bread House favorites, from left, honey and powdered sugar fry bread, green chile beef fry bread taco, red chile beef fry bread taco, ready for serving, and chocolate and butter fry bread (photo by Marjorie Rice).
In 2012, two decades after she opened her Fry Bread House as a welcoming spot for fellow Native Americans to enjoy the tastes of home, Cecelia Miller got a phone call from a stranger telling her she had won an award for her restaurant, including free air fare for two to New York City, and a free hotel stay.
Miller was confused, and told her daughter, Jennifer Miller about it.
“I told her it was a scam, and don’t give them your credit card number,” Jennifer said.
The probably nonplussed representative of the James Beard Foundation, whose awards are considered the Oscars of the culinary world, wasn’t giving up.
“They kept calling her,” Miller said, and finally Cecelia believed it was real. Her little restaurant on 7th Avenue and Hazelwood was a winner in the “America’s Classics” category, the first Native American restaurant to be so honored in the awards’ 14-year history.
“My mom, my sister, myself and my niece went to the award ceremony,” Jennifer Miller said. “It was at The Met, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, what the hell is going on here?’ Just the bigness of it, the photographers. I was not expecting it, and I know my mom wasn’t.
“When mom had to get up to give the speech, she had rheumatoid arthritis and could barely walk. To see her, to know where she came from, and to see her lifetime of hard work acknowledged, I was so moved and overwhelmed.” Miller still is, tearing up at the memory.
While she surely appreciated the accolades, through her life what really mattered to Cecelia Miller was her family and community.
The Tohono O’odham woman learned to cook as a girl, the eldest in the family, with responsibility for feeding her siblings while her mother worked in the fields in and around Sacaton. The food was plain – fry bread and tortillas made from flour, shortening, baking powder and salt – topped with beans and whatever else was available. Red chile beef was a favorite – still is.
“When my mother moved to Phoenix, she ended up getting married and having five sons on a very limited income,” Richard Perry said. “She worked hard to feed us, honing her skills.”
While raising her family, Cecelia also was involved in the community, as a founding director of at Kee N’ Bah, a Native American Head Start program, helping to support families – especially single mothers – to raise their children.
She also became a realtor, encouraging Indian people to buy homes in the then-affordable neighborhood to build stability in their families.
Her marriage ended, and Cecelia eventually met and married the Rev. Joedd Miller, pastor of a nearby Presbyterian church and a fellow community activist. They had two daughters.
“My father was very involved in the Phoenix community and beyond Phoenix in the Indian community,” Miller said. “He advocated for Indian people across Arizona and across the nation. And not just Indian people, my dad was a civil rights fighter.”
“Building communities over the shared table was what Cecilia believed in,” Perry said.
“That was part of why she decided to open up the original Fry Bread House,” Miller said. “It was right by the Phoenix Indian Medical Center and the Phoenix Indian Center.”
People from Indian communities throughout Arizona came to the area for its services and found themselves in an unfamiliar urban setting, Perry said.
“A lot of them came to Phoenix because of tragic circumstances – a death or illness – because the medical center was the biggest provider of treatments for Indians in Arizona.”
The families had no clue where to find comfort and support, and Cecilia wanted to offer a place where they could feel welcome and at ease while enjoying indigenous food. She didn’t know anything about how to start a restaurant, so she headed to the library and took classes. Her children were enlisted in the effort, and in 1992 the original restaurant was born, on 8th Street and Indian School.
There was no phone, no social media, no drinks machine – people got cans of soda from an ice chest.
Butter and chocolate are drizzled over piping hot fry bread (photo by Marjorie Rice).
The menu was simple and redolent of home: puffy, blistery fry bread tacos with toppings including red or green chile beef, beans, cheese, lettuce and sour cream; posole, hominy and menudo; burros and tostados; and for dessert, piping hot fry bread slathered with butter and topped with powdered sugar and honey, or drizzled with chocolate.
Cecilia insisted that the food be fresh. The fry bread, beautifully puffed and non-greasy, is hand-stretched and cooked to order – no steam tables or heat lamps here. The chile and stews come from Cecelia’s family recipes.
Perry recalls one memorable day when they ran out of beans right before rush hour. “People were coming in from work, and the only way to get through it was to head to a supermarket and pick up cans of Rosarita refried beans.” Cecilia reluctantly agreed, but it never happened again.
The restaurant outgrew its original location and moved to the current site in 2001. Any lunch or dinner hour will find guests lined up out the door, waiting for orders to enjoy in the old house or out on in the yard or to take away.
Joedd Miller died in 2009 and Cecilia Miller passed away in 2020. While none of the children work in the kitchen, several share duties managing the restaurant’s operations, including maintenance, staffing and catering. And for them, the traditions, the menu, the community commitment haven’t changed.
“To me, it’s about the experience and the connection,” Miller said. “Where you serve shared food, that’s where you’re really able to connect in a way that’s beyond politics, beyond differences.”
That includes supporting their staff, she said. “We try to focus on supporting and educating and retaining staff. We’re also a Second Chances organization. It means people out of recovery or prison. We see value in those individuals and seek to provide them with opportunities. This has been happening for years. My parents really felt strongly about it.”
Fry Bread House, 4545 N. 7th Ave., is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday. For information, call 602-351-2345 or visit www.frybreadhouseaz.com.
