Business Woman :Dolly Watts Liliget Feast House | Catering Business
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Dolly Watts is a wonder. At age 49, she went to university; at 57, she started
a catering business; at 60, she opened a restaurant. And at 69, she won the
Gold Medal in an Iron Chef competition in Vancouver.
Dolly owns and operates Liliget Feast House in Vancouver, a restaurant that celebrates the aboriginal food of her childhood. In 2001, she won a National Aboriginal Achievement award for business and commerce. Dolly estimates
that, between her catering business and her restaurant, she’s spent “more
than $1 million in wages for aboriginal people.”
Liliget is a combination of all the things that matter to Dolly: she’s an
organizer and a manager, and she enjoys the business end; her family works
with her; the restaurant features native cooking; and it gives her a chance to
share her Git’ksan heritage and culture with customers.
“I knew it was the only native restaurant in Canada,” she says, “and because
I studied anthropology at university, I could talk to anyone about our culture.
I was very outspoken and not shy to talk about it.”
Even Dolly’s website fi nds a balance between savvy marketing and being
true to herself. She’s a poet, and uses her website to give customers another
sense of her life.
“When we launched the website, we launched it at an international market –
especially the poetry. I wanted people to see what my life was really like –
that it really was me picking berries, or participating in a large funeral.
People are really thankful to learn about native people.”?
