Doors closing
What was once a busy place for hungry students at Arizona State University’s downtown campus to gather is gone. Hsin Cafe, which outdates the expansion of the Walter Cronkite School in central Phoenix, officially closed on Feb. 1 after nine years in business next to the Taylor Place dorms.
The restaurant saw the downtown campus blossom into a shiny new option for ASU students and help rejuvenate the core of Phoenix. When Hsin opened, the campus had fewer than 9,000 students and today it is over 12,000, and Hsin sat in the middle of all of it, between the Cronkite school and the new Sandra Day O’Connor Law School buildings. Restaurants aren’t always considered in the history of a given area but Hsin has been there through it all and now it is gone.
According to the university data base College Factual, ASU’s student population is 7 percent Asian. So to have a casual restaurant like this with — as you can see — a large open outdoor seating area for Asian students to have familiar cuisine and spend time together is valuable.
Of course, there is always the possibility that something new and better fills the place of Hsin. One ASU student quoted in a Downtown Devil story said she “isn’t happy about Hsin closing its doors, (but) hopes the location turns into something more familiar to the students.” Fortunately, students have other options, and perhaps a more recognizable brand will fill in the vacant space.
However, the change could threaten the cultural diversity in the immediate vicinity of the downtown campus. That is valuable and often forgotten when commercial real estate developers lease space to businesses. Especially at a large school, giving all members of the student body somewhere to go and feel comfortable is vital.
The Phoenix Business Journal notes Hsin was one of the only Chinese options for downtown visitors, as the majority of Asian restaurants in the area serve sushi, ramen or Thai cuisine but few offer Chinese food. The other options immediately around the downtown campus are primarily American food, including Subway and Chick Fil-A as well as a health food shop on the ground floor of the Cronkite school building.
Food tells the story of who lives and exists in a place. Hsin helped tell that story for the ASU downtown campus and will leave a hole for the growing population of Asian students who come to the city to learn and develop as people.
