Kathmandu Kitchen, 1728 Broadway, occupies one in a row of small commercial buildings on the south side of the street put up in the 1920s and 1930s to serve the growing Land Park neighborhood.
 
The buildings were constructed right up to the sidewalk with large display windows providing good interior views for pedestrians, common before widespread automobile ownership. Restaurants which occupy these spaces, such as the Kathmandu Kitchen, provide inviting tableaus to potential customers walking by. 
 
The businesses that have come and gone from the south side of the 1700 block have been typical for a neighborhood-serving commercial strip. They’ve sold dry goods, insurance, hardware, haircuts, wigs, tax preparation, travel arrangements, watch-and-jewelry repair, investment advice, records, flowers, dry cleaning and laundry services, auto parts and bath-and-kitchen renovations. The parcel at #1720 has remained vacant, serving intermittently as a used car lot in the 1940s and 1950s — one of many that have come and gone throughout Broadway’s history.
 
Also located on the south side of the 1700 block have been some businesses serving other businesses:  printing, bookkeeping, office furniture sales. These functions point toward the fact that Broadway is on the fringe of the Central Business District and that it serves as more than a neighborhood shopping street. Another clue was the 1949 arrival at #1724 of the State Division of Highways photo lab, a precursor of more spillover to come of auto-related state office functions (especially the Department of Motor Vehicles) from the central district onto Broadway in the 1950s. 
 
As for the block’s representation in the local food economy, the first occupant of #1724 (circa 1930) was an ice cream manufacturer. In the 1970s, Casa Grande Products Corp. took over what had always been a cleaners at #1730 and installed its tortilla-making business.  Eventually, Casa Grande's factory outgrew these premises, and currently it occupies space on Del Paso Boulevard.  Shops selling candy, baked goods, meat, seafood, a number of “Oriental” groceries have come and gone.  The block has also had a tavern and a liquor store.
 
The 1700 block of Broadway is lined with restaurants today, but it’s surprising to learn that restaurants didn't show up here until the 1980s. The address at #1704 was the H-I Club tavern, then the landlubbers’ outpost of the well-known floating restaurant, the Virgin Sturgeon, followed a brief life as Jamaica House and now Queen Sheba. Several Chinese and Japanese restaurants have rented the address at #1724, including the current occupant, Mana.
 
As to the space at #1728, it was a site through the 1960s and 1970s where thousands of loads of clothes were washed and dried. In 1990, it became Maharani Indian Restaurant and in 2004, Kathmandu Kitchen. 
 
Nepal and Nepali Immigration to the US
 
Kathmandu Kitchen serves food from Nepal.  This country, about the size of Arkansas and with a population of about 30 million, is located between India and China.  It is most famous for its high Himalayan peaks, including the world’s tallest, Mt. Everest.  Over four-fifths of the population is Hindu, and about half speak Nepalese, closely related to Hindi. Thus, it is no surprise to find many similarities with northern Indian cooking. The influence of the physical environment is worthy of note, too. Various basic starchy plants do well at different elevations, from rice in the lowlands through maize, wheat, millet, and barley at higher elevations, and potatoes at the highest places where cultivation is possible. All of these starches are represented in Nepalese cuisine.
 
The immigration of Nepalese to the United States has been limited, but has grown over the past decade. Nearly 19,000 people from Nepal obtained legal permanent resident status between 1998 and 2007, rising from about 500 annually at the start of that period to about 3,500 at the end. (This compares with 581,000 legal immigrants from India received in the same period.)  Temporary visitors from Nepal to the US more than doubled during the same period, from about 7,000 to 16,000 per year. In 2007, one third were students attending American colleges. (Source: 2007 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, produced by the US Department of Homeland Security and posted at
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2007/ois_2007_yearbook.pdf )
 
Immigration statistics for the Sacramento region do not provide figures on how many people have come from Nepal.  Nepal is part of a category of origin countries called “South Central Asia - Other” in US Census statistics, for example.  Informal sources suggest that there may be several hundred Nepali immigrants in the region. To learn more about them, visit the web site of the Nepalis and Friends Cultural Association: http://www.nafcaonline.org/.  This organization was founded in Davis in 1998.