The (one and only) Hoito

Every Lakehead student and Thunder Bay resident has memories of the Hoito, a Thunder Bay institution famous for its Finnish pancakes and unique atmosphere. Now you can bring a taste of that memory home!  Participants will receive a bag of Hoito pancake mix and, after flipping some ‘lettu,’ they can join Finnish historian Saku Pinta on Zoom to learn about “A Brief History of the Hoito Restaurant: One Hundred Years of Labour, Community, and Co-operation.”

Pinta, a lecturer at the University of Manitoba, worked at the Hoito intermittently for over a decade and his mother, Kaija Pinta was the head cook at the restaurant until her retirement in 2008. More recently, Pinta has served as a board member of the Finlandia Co-operative of Thunder Bay, a new initiative that will re-open the Hoito as a consumers' co-operative. Until that happens, this is your opportunity to taste the Hoito one more time.