Today we’d like to introduce you to Sililack Chanthamaly.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Sililack. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Me and My husband have immigrated from Thailand and Laos about 12 years ago to Minnesota. We lived in MN for the first few years before moving around the United States for gathering our cooking and serving experiences in the restaurant business. Thereafter we decided to open our own restaurant in downtown Rome, Georgia in 2009 where we thought that Rome city is a small friendly town that is very similar to our hometown city where we came from, and Rome would be great place for us to grow our family and business, Since we have a small saving to invest.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The first year when we started up, me and my husband could not pay ourselves for working over 10 hours a day 7 day a week for the first 6 months opening the restaurant. Our sale started at $200-$300 per day only. I remembered one of our hard time we didn’t have much business and we got one first big order for $75. We were so happy to cook that order but unlucky the order was paid by a bad check. That is the only bad check we got so far so we learned we could only accept a check from our regular customer.
Most of our regular customers are local and very nice and friendly. Even though operating a small and serving far different foods than others cause us more problems than others such as one person has to do many different tasks which include kitchen’s staff and server, distance to get authentic ingredients in Atlanta 1.5 hours drive, cannot meet minimum amount of delivery, follow all health regulations and etc, with the support of our local regular customers and their Help on writing a good review on the website, make us be able to grow our business. So we always thought that local customers are like our family so we like to cook for them just like the way we cook for ourselves.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Yummy Thai Cuisine Rome GA – what should we know?
Unfortunately, me and my husband have divorced when our son is about 3 years old. As a single mom, I am no longer be able to cook or serving the customer as before but being managing daily operating of the restaurant. It is my fortune that my older sister Phim Mai who has been working in another Thai Restaurant in Minnesota, who already love to cook for her family is willing to come and help me as a head chef, along with her son or my nephew Vandee Mai. With their help and our very loyal stuff in the kitchen and the front services, I could make the business running and keep serving our best possible authentic Thai foods.
To keep our door open for business and be able to get pay my stuff, myself and could support our local community’s my most proud of as restaurant owner. We treat the foods that we serve to customers the way we cooked for our self so we wash and keep all things clean, pick the best supplies available and do our best cooking job. Along with our good customer service staff, all these keep our customers coming back. We are the only one restaurant in downtown Rome who serve Thai foods which well-known for a tasty, spicy and full of flavors which make us different from others around this town.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Cleanliness, quality of supply, authentic ingredients, quality of cooking and serving hot foods are our most important to our success.
Pricing:
- Lunch $7.95 and up
- Dinner $9.99 and up
Contact Info:
- Address: 526 Broad Street Rome, GA 30161
- Website: Yummythairome.com
- Phone: 7062919599
- Email: xuan_nospa@hotmail.com
- Facebook: YummythaiRome, Georgia
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