Great Cuisine of India in Centralia Sees Drop in Business But Presses On

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Tucked away on North Tower Avenue in a 100-year-old brick building sits Great Cuisine of India in what was the former home of Skookumchuck Tavern. Patrons of long ago who used to come in to throw back beers and down shots of hard liquor now return to feast on traditional Indian food.

“People sometimes come in and say, ‘Did you know this used to be Skookumchuck Tavern?’ Great Cuisine of India waitress Lee Leeds said. 

The building has held a number of businesses over the years, mostly taverns since the early 1970s, but now it houses Ashwani Singh’s third Indian restaurant. He owns a restaurant with the same name in Olympia and the Curry King in Lacey. He bought the building at 315 N. Tower Ave. in Centralia in 2013 and has seen steady customers ever since — that is, until recently.

With the novel coronavirus pandemic and Gov. Jay Inslee’s ban on in-house dining, the restaurant, like many others statewide, has seen a big dropoff in business.

“Customers ask me that a lot,” said Leeds, who is also the front-of-the-house person. “I’ve been asked so many times. I say, ‘Just the same as the other restaurants that can stay open and find employees. They’re doing 50 percent (of regular business).’ And that’s what we’re doing; 50 percent.”

Fridays are the one day of the week where business is about the same as it was before the coronavirus outbreak. Besides that, business has been slashed in half every other day. Leeds has talked with other surrounding businesses downtown and they’re all feeling the same effects — some more than others.

“I talked to O’Blarney’s (Irish Pub) the other day, the owner up there said he would stay open to-go but he can’t find employees,” Leeds said. “That’s the problem with the restaurants. They just can’t find the people.”

Luckily for Great Cuisine of India, it only needs three staff members to operate: a waiter and two chefs. It has saved Singh from having to lay off or reduce hours for any of his employees. The regular operating hours are still the same, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday; noon to 9 p.m., Saturday and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday. Singh usually comes in before the start of the day to check on things and then heads to the Curry King in Lacey where he is the head chef. The only major change Great Cuisine of India has seen, besides lack of customers, is every order is to-go.



“Not a lot of dishwashing,” Leeds said. 

Customers are often confused about what to do when they come in to pick up food, Leeds said. The health department told him that customers are to pay, then sit in their car and wait for the food to be brought out to them curbside. Leeds and Singh said they’re not overly worried about catching the virus from customers.

“Just like anybody else but, no, not too much,” Leeds said. “It doesn’t bother me.”

They do offer delivery through Uber Eats and are working on also getting DoorDash, a similar food delivery service that multiple Lewis County restaurants are already offering. So far, Great Cuisine of India is only making about $100 a day through Uber Eats deliveries, about 10 percent of their daily income.

Most of the customers still ordering are regulars, but Leeds and Singh are confident they can hold on with the current restaurant restrictions in place. They just hope everything goes back to normal sooner than later.

“I think one of the reasons (business is) so low is because people have bought so many groceries,” Leeds said. “Once they run low on groceries at home, they’ll start coming out more.”

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Reporter Eric Trent can be reached at etrent@chronline.com. Visit chronline.com/business for more coverage of local businesses.