Indigenous Ashland-based food truck to be featured at 2025 NFL Draft

ASHLAND, Wis. (Northern News Now) – The 2025 NFL Draft may be hosted in Green Bay but it will certainly showcase all of Wisconsin culture.

The Frybread Shack, based in Ashland, is one of four Wisconsin food trucks selected to cook inside the 2025 NFL Draft campus.

“I say, ‘Hey, you guys ready for some great news?’ And they were like, ‘What do you mean?’ and I say, ‘Hey, we’re accepted to the NFL draft this year,‘” owner of the Frybread Shack Ezra Leoso said.

Leoso said they were selected out of hundreds of food trucks that applied to be featured.

“A lot of it was because they wanted Wisconsin culture,” Leoso said.

“Wisconsin culture” is a lot more than cheese and beer.

For this Bad River Band family business, it’s all about the Indigenous delicacy.

“There’s a lot of frybread out there,” Leoso said. “We have a special recipe. We do something a little different. We make different items not traditional to Native diets.”

The menu includes frybread tacos, frybread burgers and sweet frybread bites. These signature items will be featured on their limited menu at the NFL Draft.

However, the frybread recipe itself is a Leoso family secret.

“It’s really my recipe,” Leoso’s mom said. “It started with my grandma, but it evolved.”

While Leoso also wouldn’t reveal the recipe, one thing that will be showcased at the draft is the community, Leoso said, is the reason for their success.

“When we started this, we started as a pop-up, we got these second-hand,” Leoso said. “There’s not much how I can express how excited we are to be there to represent Ashland County, Bad River.”

With the timer to draft day ticking down, there’s only one thing Leoso has left to say.

“Ashland, Bad River, the Frybread Shack is now on the clock,” Leoso said.

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