A popular Columbus restaurant is given a second life as family helps owner reopen
Business was tough when Rachanee Dyer and her husband, Glenn, first opened Chili Thai 20 years ago.
They only had one customer who came in regularly, and many folks didn’t understand that the Thai food was different than Chinese fare.
One day, their one regular customer told Dyer that he was moving to New Mexico. It would take years for their small downtown business to gain traction as more people came to appreciate Thai cuisine.
Dyer is expecting a much stronger start as she prepares to reopen Chili Thai for dinner on Friday with the help of family members, about a year and a half after closing the restaurant with plans to sell.
Bringing Chili Thai back
By 2020, Chili Thai had become a thriving downtown restaurant when the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for a series of struggles. Dyer was left in a month-long coma when she had a severe case of COVID in June 2020. A couple of months later, Glenn died after suffering from a stroke in August 2020.
Dyer was unable to keep the business going by herself because it was difficult to find labor and handle the day-to-day operations alone.
She closed the business permanently in February 2022 and tried to sell it.
Her niece, Jan Kanaprasertkul, attended Columbus State University, but hadn’t returned since moving back to Thailand after school. After Dyer closed the restaurant, Kanaprasertkul and her husband, Tony, came to visit last year.
“How about if you not sell?” Tony suggest to Dyer.
The couple offered to take over Chili Thai if Dyer agreed.
“Are you sure?” Dyer asked them. “Working in the restaurant is very hard work.”
Jan and Tony said they would be able to learn, Dyer said.
The family decided that Dyer would teach them everything they need to know about Chili Thai for two years. Then she will turn the restaurant over to Jan and Tony before retiring.
What to expect with the reopening
Chili Thai’s reopening will be soft, Dyer said, and initially only open for dinner for the first couple of weeks.
Another employee from Thailand is expected to make it to Columbus soon, she said, and the restaurant still needs another part-time employee before it can expand the operating hours.
The small staff might affect how fast orders are completed at the beginning, Dyer said.
“Just be patient,” she said. “Expect some food delay because it’s only one cook.”
Part of the reasoning for this is because Dyer would like the cooks in the kitchen to be able to prepare authentic Thai food for customers. She will continue to be the main cook, she said, as she teaches others.
All of the food Chili Thai serves has to be homemade with good quality, Dyer said. It’s important that customers can trust the food she serves to be good, she said.
The menu will remain the same as it was before the restaurant closed, Dyer said. But the prices have increased by about a dollar because of inflation.
“I went to Atlanta,” she said. “I think all the produce prices increased like 40-50%. Some of them increased 100%.”
Although she is happy about reopening, Dyer is scared. She hopes customers will understand that service might be slow at first because of the need for more labor, but running the restaurant will be different without Glenn.
He was always the person in the front of the house interacting with customers, she said, while Dyer cooked in the kitchen. But she hopes to keep up with greeting customers as much as she can without him.
“When people come in, I understand they want to talk to me and say hello,” Dyer said. “I want to talk to them too, but I have to cook in the kitchen.”
This story was originally published September 6, 2023 at 1:45 PM.
