Will Tamarind Tree and other tenants be able to stay in Dennis Chinn’s new vision for the Chinatown/International District's Asian Plaza? Credit: HEWITT ARCHITECTS
Will Tamarind Tree and other tenants be able to stay in Dennis Chinn’s new vision for the Chinatown/International Districts Asian Plaza?
Will Tamarind Tree and other tenants be able to stay in Dennis Chinn’s new vision for the Chinatown/International District’s Asian Plaza? HEWITT ARCHITECTS

Capitol Hill isn’t the only Seattle neighborhood where developers are displacing beloved and iconic small businesses.

“We don’t know what our future is going to be,” said Tam Nguyen, co-owner of Tamarind Tree, a Vietnamese restaurant in Little Saigon on the edge of Chinatown-International District.

Nguyen and his three siblings immigrated to Washington from Vietnam in 1980. To stay connected to their culture, they opened Tamarind Tree in the heart of Little Saigon in 2004. The restaurant, which the Nguyen siblings founded in honor of their parents’ restaurant back home, focuses on traditional preparations of classic Vietnamese dishes.

Today, Tamarind Tree, which sits in Asian Plaza on 12th Avenue and Jackson Street, is consistently busy for lunch and dinner. Waiters zip between tables to deliver pots of tea, fresh spring rolls, and steaming bowls of beef pho. The restaurant’s sleek decor and charming patio stand out in a strip mall that’s showing its age.

Ana Sofia Knauf reports on Neighborhoods for The Stranger. When she’s not commuting to work by bus, she’s worrying about Seattle’s rising rents, giving herself headaches thinking about race, or trying...