Another Diabetes Plaza tenant is GONE, but not forever.
Ban Bu Xian Szechuan Cuisine’s Richmond Union Square Shopping Centre location has shut down, with the lease expiring after a roughly four-year run.
The Union Square spot opened back in 2022 and was one of the chain’s busier outposts, known for its ancient Chinese-themed dining room and menu of Szechuan and Jianghu dishes.
The good news is the brand is not leaving Richmond.
Ban Bu Xian has relocated to the old Grill Party unit on Alexandra Road.
That space has been under construction for a while since Grill Party shut down last year, with locals wondering what was actually moving in.
We walked by the unit last week and caught the staff gearing up to soft open this past Thursday night.
If the brand sounds familiar, it should.
We previously reported on Ban Bu Xian shutting down their noodle concept on Alexandra Road last year, which has since been taken over by Shanghai-based dumpling chain Yang’s Dumpling.
So in a way, this is Ban Bu Xian coming right back to the same Richmond food street, this time slotted directly underneath the new billiards spot that opened upstairs.
The menu still leans into the dishes that built the chain’s following.
Spicy chicken with peanuts, Szechuan boiled fish, mapo tofu, the numbing spicy fried chicken, plus the brown sugar mochi and yogurt donuts that show up in basically every dessert order.
But there is one wrinkle worth flagging before you make the trip.
Red Note commenters have already been pointing out the WILD fengshui issue with the new location.
A few are saying the unit is straight up bad luck because it sits facing directly into a road, and they are listing off all the previous tenants of the building that have come and gone without surviving.
Whether you actually buy into fengshui or not, that turnover pattern at the unit is still kinda scary.
But this is another change along Alexandra Road, which has recently seen the addition of Cafe Gloucester and the departure of longtime spots like Manzo Izakaya and Seto Sushi.
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Address: 8511 Alexandra Rd unit 120, Richmond, BC V6X 1C3
