A popular Thai restaurant in Wilmington has been closed since April for a renovation and rebranding. Now the owners are planning a grand re-opening for the new Chang Thai on Sept. 1 at 1319 Military Cutoff Road.
Before that, many knew the restaurant as a second location of the Big Thai brand, which opened in Landfall Shopping Center in 2012. The husband-and-wife team of Mike Todt and Songsaeng "Sa" Jithan-Todt took over the business in 2015.
When it came time to revamp the eatery, they turned to Sa Todt’s homeland of Surin, Thailand, which is considered the Land of the Elephants, for inspiration. Chang is Thai for elephant, and the area is known as a place for training elephants for royalty and producing the best jasmine rice.
The Todts are making
it clear to their fans that much of the restaurant will be the same, including the same staff and menu. But the space is updated.
What’s new?
The restaurant was due for some necessary updates, Mike Todt said.
“In order to do it, they had to really tear everything out,” he said. “So, we said, ‘If we're going in, let's really bring it home.”
They added a new bar with seating and will be serving cocktails in addition to their beer-and-wine service. They also opened the space between the bar area and the dining room with a display partition filled with Asian art. New banquette style seating lines some of the perimeter in the main dining space.
The renovations have also expanded the kitchen and service station, he said.
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What’s ahead?
Sa Todt is the primary owner / operator of the space and is usually in the kitchen at the restaurant. She perfected the recipes to her standard soon after she took over Big Thai a decade ago. The Pad Thai, Drunken Noodles and curries are favorites. She also recently added a few noodle soup bowls to the menu, like a creamy noodle bowl made with a red curry broth and the Yen-Ta-Fo, or pink noodle soup.
However, she does hope to bring Thai-style sushi to the menu in the coming weeks. They also plan to have patio-style dining in front of the restaurant when the weather cools.
Allison Ballard is the food and dining reporter at the StarNews. You can reach her at aballard@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: This Wilmington Thai restaurant has a new name and look, same favorites
