Eat Thai Ann Arbor is the sixth restaurant for chef/owner Teerawat Pho-On (left). His cousin, Jay Armani (right) serves as his management consultant. | J. Adrian Wylie
A new restaurant on S. Main sounds like a not-so-subtle imperative: Eat Thai Ann Arbor. The name was chosen to be simple, but the story of its chef and owner, Teerawat Pho-On, is anything but.
It’s the sixth eatery for the Thailand native, who goes by Apple. His cousin and management consultant, Jay Armani, explains that Apple is a fairly common nickname in Thailand, where monikers are so widespread that “I can know you my whole life, and I would never know your full legal name.”
All six outlets have different names. Apple’s first was Thai Delight in Clinton Township. The second was the purchase of Tuptim Thai Cuisine, in the building recognizable as a former Long John Silver’s on Washtenaw Ave. near Golfside. He’s now in the process of moving it across the street to another conspicuous building, turning the former Emerald City and Ypbor Yan from green to the three primary colors familiar to Tuptim’s clientele.
Flashback: Emerald City to Ypbor Yan, May 2012
Apple’s mother and Armani’s father were two of fourteen siblings born to a school principal and his wife in eastern Thailand. Apple’s mother eventually emigrated to Michigan, and though he had trained as an architect, he came to join her in 2000, when he was in his mid-twenties.
Armani, about the same age, arrived in the U.S. much earlier, at age three. His father was recruited by the CIA to fight in Vietnam, and the family was granted American citizenship after the war. “It was a great honor,” Armani says. “Nobody from our village had ever been to America.”
Apple spoke so little English when he arrived that he took a job washing dishes at the former Sala Thai in Detroit’s Eastern Market. When he tired of eating Thai cuisine, he’d go to McDonald’s. Armani remembers asking him on the phone what he liked to order there. Apple said he didn’t know. “I just give them money and they give me something to eat. So whatever they give me to eat, it’s what I get that day,” Armani recalls him saying.
One day, Apple reluctantly filled in for an absent line cook. He was content washing dishes, but with encouragement his culinary career began to develop.
Armani, though based in Florida, has had his hand in getting each successive restaurant up and running. He credits local real estate broker Tom Gritter with helping them seize the right opportunities.
Gritter says the former KouZina Greek Street Food site, where Eat Thai is located, was in high demand, including from national coffee chains, but “their reputation with Tuptim, their other restaurants, really made the landlord pick them and have good confidence in them.”
Flashbacks: KouZina, July 2016; KouZina and Carite have closed, Dec. 2023
Throughout their methodical growth journey, including three locations in Oakland County, Armani says that Apple has absorbed his advice: focus on knowing your customers to generate repeat business, and get comfortable delegating to trustworthy staff and empowering them with expectations, training, and tools. He says they both plan to move to the Ann Arbor area, even as Apple divides his time among his various establishments, ordering various dishes—“‘Make me this, make me that,’ so he can see, is it close to what he made?”
For downtown’s only full-service Thai restaurant, they aim for a more homestyle take on the cuisine than at places like Tuptim. Armani says foodies favor such dishes as khao soi—crispy egg noodles, creamy curry, grilled chicken, pickled mustard greens, red onion, cilantro, and lime. “Nothing is going to beat khao soi as far as richness, flavor and broth,” he says. The mango red curry is among the entrées new to their menu here, and they’ll eventually add sushi and ramen to the mix as well. Lunch combo boxes ($15) are available every day.
Sensing a need for more late-night options in a college town, they offer a selection of appetizers and entrées into the wee hours, fulfilling any nocturnal fixes for pad thai or phở. A liquor license was awaiting final state approval at press time, and the spacious back patio should be ready for the outdoor dining season.
“America, for foreigners, is the land of opportunity,” Armani maintains. “If you try hard today, you can make something happen. A lot of people still believe in that. Whereas overseas, it’s harder because it takes more money, and then you gotta know people that want to help you.”
Eat Thai Ann Arbor, 332 S. Main. (734) 355–3224. Mon.–Wed. 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Thurs.–Sat. 11 a.m.–4 a.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–2 a.m. eatthaiannarbor.com
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