Affordable, tiny, and bright, Cafe Ashiana making lasting impression at Harvard and Pine

(Image: Cafe Ashiana)

(Image: Cafe Ashiana)

By Brenna Gauchat

Walking through Harvard and Pine, you might find your eye catching on the handwritten menu posted on Cafe Ashiana’s front door. iIs sunflower-yellow walls will certainly catch your attention.

The Indian fast-food joint is one of the latest tiny additions to Pike/Pine, greeting customers with the smell of chicken tikka grilling behind the counter as its owner, Syed Begum, chats with his regulars.

Begum told CHS this is exactly the type of restaurant he always envisioned opening. No flashy signs or grand openings, just serving fresh meals that are affordable.

It sounds impossible on Capitol Hill. But Begum and his mother, Sawar Begum, own Asiana Caterers that serves larger events like weddings. They buy ingredients in bulk to split with the catering service allowing the restaurant to keep prices low for storefront customers.

“You get a good meal, not just fried stuff. Good protein, good rice portions,” Syed Begum said. Organic meat is grilled in front of guests and Begum uses a dough rolling machine – similar to those in pizza parlors – to make their roti, an Indian flatbread, fresh for every wrap.

“Coming off the grill, that’s the best thing you can have.”

Items on Cafe Ashiana’s menu are priced under $20 and options are kept simple: chicken, lamb or beef offered in a few different marinades and served in a sandwich, Rumali wrap or rice plate. Almost everything is made-to-order, with exceptions including curries and biryani plates.

Ashiana’s menu and functionality is inspired by the street vendors Begum would visit in his hometown of Hyderabad. He described a vendor that sold exclusively beef tikka – no additions or substitutes – and consistently had hundreds of customers lining the street, an eager Begum being one of them.

While the cafe specializes in classic dishes like kebab or butter chicken, Begum said nailing down recipes was a learning experience. To recreate the flavors of his hometown, he consistently experimented with cooking techniques learned from his mother and professional chefs as well as consulting his friends back in India.

Begum said his roti dough recipe took months to develop and involved testing various combinations of Indian and American flour to create the elasticity found in Hyderabad-specific roti.

“That’s the [Rumali] wrap we usually get as a kid, that’s the memory. It’s more about having that wrap in America, that’s a craving,” Begum said. “Not a lot of people have narrowed down the recipe.”

Cafe Ashiana is open from 11 AM to 10 PM, Monday through Friday, catching the diverse crowd that travels up and down Pine. He serves students from Seattle Central, regular neighbors stopping in for a quick lunch, and the nightlife scene passing through for late night grub.

“Wednesdays, there are like four students who attend evening class at the college,” Begum said, the storefront facing Seattle Central’s front lawn. “They stop by and grab dinner, so I know them by their faces, what they like to eat. It’s pretty good to see there’s a whole lot of regulars.”

Begum said he has seen many places in the Capitol Hill restaurant scene close after their initial novelty fades, causing him to prioritize developing and maintaining the quality of his food over creating or chasing a certain “aesthetic”.

“If the food’s good, people are going to get it regardless,” Begum said about growing his business organically.

Cafe Ashiana took over the corner space last November after its previous owners, a chicken shop named Chiqpa, closed. Begum kept renovations to a minimum, focusing on practical necessities in the kitchen and dining space, to avoid dragging out their “closed” period. Even Ashiana’s street signs came up a week after the place had opened in December 2026.

But the spot does have its own unique feel. The vibrant yellow walls are leftover from the location’s previous businesses including Korean corndog joint Korn Dog and the windows lining the dining area provide guests with classic Capitol Hill people-watching opportunities.

(Image: Cafe Ashiana)

There is also a vending machine next to the front counter is stocked with chilled canned sodas and homemade mango lassi that Begum blends using fresh mangoes and bottles himself.

Cafe Ashiana has company in the neighborhood for great Indian takeout from a tiny space. On Broadway, Spice Bliss continues to provide plenty of both spice and bliss to customers as it prepare to move across the street into a new and slightly larger space in the Pride Place development. They’ll also be adding some new additions to the menu including — slightly unexpectedly — wings and pizza.

Although Begum plans to stay small with Cafe Ashiana at Harvard and Pine, he said he still hopes to install more features to help him with efficiency – like a digital sign in the window to advertise the cafe’s rotating specials and new menu items to replace his current handwritten signs – as Capitol Hill heads into summer.

“With this location, I feel like there were too many changes that happened in a very small period of time,” Begun said about his corner spot and rotating cast of previous owners. “I think people are realizing that Cafe Ashiana is a new spot where we can get a full meal at a very decent price.”

Cafe Ashiana is located at 1601 Harvard Ave. Learn more at cafeashianawa.com.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE

Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support