What began as a family food cart in 2016, followed by a full-service restaurant in 2019, has now entered its third chapter — Little Tibet Market & Cafe, which opened July 29 in the Northgate Shopping Center on North Sherman Avenue.
As the name suggests, the new location functions as both a cafe and a grocery store. Shoppers can browse shelves of Southeast Asian groceries, locally grown produce, Sorig herbal wellness products (a brand of Tibetan teas, relievers, lotions and more) and handcrafted Tibetan and Himalayan gifts and decor. In the adjoining cafe, momos, curries, samosas and boba drinks are on the menu — all made fresh daily.
The idea for the market came one night in the parking lot of FEED Kitchens, after the sibling-owners of Little Tibet were finishing up a long shift for a food cart event. They were tired of driving across town, and sometimes even to Chicago, to restock hard-to-find ingredients needed for their business. Coincidentally, they noticed a “For Lease” sign across the lot in the Northgate Shopping Center that evening.
“That moment sparked an idea,” says Namgyal Ponsar, one of the shop’s owners and the eldest sibling. “What if we turned that space into a grocery store that carried all the ingredients we and others in the community needed?”…