Indian Palace seeks new location, current building set for demolition

Indian Palace and Cookhouse Restaurant & Bar will be closing its doors by the end of July. The building complex, located at 13330 NE 175th St., Woodinville, is set to be demolished at that time.

The restaurant posted the announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday, May 26. Co-owner Satwant Kaur and her son Rajbir Singh, who helps run the restaurant, say they are seeking a space to relocate and that they invite community suggestions.

They also hope to get the attention of Woodinville City Council or Woodinville Chamber of Commerce for support or to help them secure a new location, perhaps even in the new development coming into their current location. Several other businesses in the complex must also close or relocate by that time, including Teriyaki Bowl, Hacienda Guadalajara and J-Bro's Gluten-Free Market.

Kaur and her husband Bir Singh are the owners of Indian Palace as well as the Cookhouse, where they serve American food. Singh opened the restaurant in 2000. He originally sold only American food, but shortly after decided to sell Indian food as well.

The restaurant is now most known for its Indian food, and only sells American food during lunch hours.

Though they knew the building was set to be demolished eventually for new development, their understanding was this would not happen until a few years from now at the earliest. That changed after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“We had a hunch that it may go at some point, but we didn’t think it would happen this quickly,” Rajbir said. “But with Covid and all that, it more so accelerated that.”

Kaur said the new developers could not give a firm answer on timing.

“They’d say a year, maybe two years, six months,” she said.  She began to notice other businesses in the complex close, she said, likely in anticipation of the demolition. Rajbir says that when he talked with several of the other businesses in the complex in March, no one knew when the buildings in the complex were scheduled to be demolished.

In mid-May, Kaur said, they were informed that they must leave by July 31.Rajbir said they have reached out to agents and developers in several locations such as Woodin Creek Village and Totem Lake in Kirkland since the onset of the pandemic. So far, they’ve not found success.

“Indian food–it’s growing in popularity,” Rajbir said, noting that Indian restaurants have found success throughout the Seattle area. “Considering that we’ve been doing it for a little bit, and my dad’s been doing it for 35 years.” Bir Singh originally owned a restaurant on Aurora Avenue in Seattle.

“With 22 years, we’ve seen a lot of changes,” Rajbir said. “With the tech boom and all that, we’ve seen a lot more diversity,” he continued. “Especially in the later years of our business, we’ve seen that there’s been more acceptance of it.”

Kaur noted that they were stigmatized after 9/11, and that people were unwilling to try Indian food, which was less popular in the area at the time. In a 2009 print article in the Weekly, which is republished on the Indian Palace website, she is quoted as saying: “Some people marked us as wrong.” She continues, “They called us names and accused of being like the terrorists. They didn’t understand who we were and didn’t try to find out.”

Kaur says that she felt the discrimination lessen in the middle of the ’00s. But the business suffered again after the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic. Still, Indian Palace has served Woodinville for over two decades, and they have no intention of stopping any time soon.

“We always had these little hurdles, but each time it’s grown,” Rajbir said. “We power through it.”

They ask anyone with potential leads for a new location to contact them through their Facebook page or their website.