Sixty yearsin Thamel.
From a Peace Corps volunteer's homesick café to a Kathmandu landmark — the long arc of Northfield, told through the people who built it.
A young man from Minnesota,
a city he had never seen.
In the summer of 1962, twenty-two-year-old Mike Frame graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota — a town better known for its 19th-century bank robbery (Jesse James, 1876) than for any export to the Himalayas. Mike signed up for one of the first Peace Corps cohorts to Nepal, packed a trunk, and flew east.
When he eventually opened a café on a quiet residential lane behind what would become Thamel's main road, he named it after home. The bar he built next door — all polished wood and frontier prints — he named for the outlaw whose ghost had haunted his hometown's history books since boyhood.
For decades the place served what locals still call "the best fajitas in Nepal" — a dish almost no one else in Kathmandu was making. Travellers found it. Word spread. By the 1980s, Mike Frame had quietly become known as "the father of tourist Thamel".
The keepers of
Mike Frame's flame.
When the time came to pass on the café, Mike chose carefully. The Bistas have run Northfield for over two decades — and continue to run it the way it has always been run: with warmth, music, and an eye for every small detail.
Mr. Shangharsa Bista
Managing Director
Twenty-five years in Nepal tourism. Vice President of the Thamel Tourism Development Council and Executive Member of REBAN. A licensed paragliding pilot trained in Salt Lake City, Utah — Shangharsa runs Northfield with the same precision he brings to flight.
- 25+ years in Nepal tourism
- Vice President, Thamel Tourism Development Council
- Executive Member, REBAN
- Licensed paragliding pilot (Salt Lake City, USA)
Mrs. Pratishtha Amatya Bista
Executive Director
Guinness World Record holder for Random Object Memorization (2004). Singer, songwriter and author of the album "Pratistha". The interior designer behind every Northfield property — every lantern, every textile, every chair you sit in was placed by her hand.
- Guinness World Record (Random Object Memorization, 2004)
- Singer/songwriter — album "Pratistha"
- Interior designer of all Northfield properties
- Director of Business & Finance
Sixty years,
one lantern at a time.
1962
Mike Frame Arrives
A 22-year-old Carleton College graduate from Northfield, Minnesota, lands in Kathmandu with one of the first Peace Corps cohorts in Nepal.
1970s
A Café Opens
Frame opens Northfield Cafe on Chaksibari Marg, named for his Minnesota hometown. The Jesse James Bar — a nod to the Northfield bank robbery of 1876 — opens beside it.
1980s
The Father of Tourist Thamel
As Thamel transforms from a quiet residential lane into the trekker capital of Asia, Frame and his café become the neighbourhood anchor. The fajitas earn their reputation.
2000s
The Bista Family Steps In
Mr. Shangharsa Bista and Mrs. Pratishtha Amatya Bista take over operations, preserving the spirit while modernising the kitchen.
2004
A Guinness World Record
Mrs. Pratishtha Amatya Bista achieves a Guinness World Record for Random Object Memorization — a small-print legend that locals still mention.
Today
Sixty Years On
1,200+ reviews. Top-30 in Kathmandu on Wanderlog. Live Gandharva music every evening. The fire pits still burn, and the apple pie is still on the menu.
One family, four addresses.
Northfield Cafe is the original — but it sits within a small, family-run hospitality group that quietly looks after travellers across Kathmandu.