Food to Thai For

Traverse City’s Thai Cafe celebrates 15 years

By Greg Tasker | March 8, 2025

Tucked in a small shopping center near the shores of Grand Traverse Bay, Thai Cafe has served as a staple of Asian cuisine in Traverse City for 15 years.

Through the years, Thai Cafe has managed to endure, serving favorites like Pad Thai and spring rolls despite ownership changes, a pandemic, and the months-long construction project along Grandview Parkway last summer.

“There’s not a lot of variety of Asian food in this town,” Vilai Yang says. “I think we bring a different culture and a variety of Asian food. I think people appreciate that.”

Cultural Fusion

Yang, along with his brother, Louis, are the newest owners of Thai Cafe. The brothers took over the restaurant from their mother, Ahlee, in April 2023.

“My mother had no connection to the area,” says Yang, who was born and raised in southeast Michigan and recalls at least one family vacation to Traverse City. “She was looking for a restaurant. She found out about Thai Cafe being for sale by word of mouth and happened to be in Traverse City. She liked the location.”

The family has retained much of the menu created by the original owners, Myker Vang Hang and her husband, Cheng Hang, who sold the restaurant to Ahlee. The menu was created by Myker Vang and reflects the food she ate in Thailand.

“It’s standard Thai fare,” says Yang, whose ethnicity is Hmong, an indigenous group in Southeast Asia who live in Laos and Thailand.

Thai cuisine, one of the most popular ethnic foods in the U.S., is known for its cooking techniques, fresh ingredients and unique flavors—that enticing blend of sweet, sour, salty and spicy.

“I give credit to the previous owners who started all of this from scratch. [Cheng Hang] had been in the restaurant industry,” Yang says, noting Hang’s parents owned a Chinese-Thai restaurant in Charlevoix. “He was mainly into Chinese food. Our menu has some Chinese items as well.”

Chinese and Thai recipes differ slightly in terms of ingredients, Yang points out, but the cooking process is pretty much the same—being able to flip ingredients on a wok. Thai Cafe gets its various sauces from a local Asian market and other staples from local food distributors.

“We have made some slight changes to the menu,” says Yang, who began his restaurant career as a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant in Metro Detroit. “There were some items that were not so popular, so we took them off. We tweaked some things, to make them more to our liking. We might have added a little more sweetness or saltiness to some ingredients like rice or Pad Thai.”

On the Menu

When you take a look at the menu, you may feel overwhelmed—in a good way. Thai Cafe offers 22 appetizers, soups, and salads and nearly 40 mains, with customizable proteins (chicken, tofu, beef, pork, shrimp, and roast duck) and spice levels (mild, mild+, medium, medium+, hot, and extra hot).

The Chinese-American dishes at Thai Cafe include Orange Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Mongolian Beef, egg rolls, Wonton Soup, and Crab Rangoon. The Thai selection includes spring rolls, lettuce wraps and a variety of noodle soups, salads, and variations of fried rice.

Yang recommends the Pad Thai, one of the best-known traditional Thai dishes and a popular street food in that country. For the unfamiliar, the dish consists of sauteed rice noodles, onions, eggs, scallions, and bean sprouts and is topped with crushed peanuts and lime.

Variations include Pad Kee Maw, also known as “drunken noodle” and Yellow Curry Pad Thai, in which the noodles are simmered in “our house special creamy coconut sauce along with yellow curry.”

“A lot of people really enjoy that dish,” he says.

Yang says the most popular dishes are the vegetable and chicken spring rolls, the fried rice options (with variations that include infusion of basil, yellow curry, red curry, and pineapple), anything with red curry, Pad Thai, and Peanut Curry Pad Thai. The latter varies from traditional Pad Thai with a house-made creamy coconut sauce along with peanut butter and red curry.

Making Changes

There have been some other changes at the 14-seat restaurant as well. The brothers have freshened the interior with a new coat of paint and bright abstract paintings by a local artist. One wall has been draped in a grass-like covering with a neon sign, “Food to Thai for.” They’ve also added bamboo paneling along the walls.

They kept the tables and seats. While seating is limited to 14 right now—most of their business is carryout—Yang hopes to add more tables in the future. Open six days a week (closed on Mondays), Thai Cafe does brisk business during the traditional lunch and dinner hours, both in-dining and carryout.

“We’re short-staffed so we have just enough seating for us to be able to handle,” he says, noting the restaurant is truly a family affair. His brother’s wife, Ariel, runs the front of the business, answering the phone and handling carry-outs. The brothers run the back. His three nephews handle dishwashing and cooking appetizers.

“We’ve slowly been making the place our own,” Yang adds.

With nearly two years of running Thai Cafe under their belt, what’s ahead?

“We want to improve the quality and experience of our customers. We want to do specials in the future and offer more culture and diversity of food,” Yang says, adding “And continue what we are doing.”

They’ll continue to operate a food booth at the National Cherry Festival, selling Pad Thai, fried rice, cucumber salad, and General Chicken to hungry fairgoers. It’s something their mother started, making more people become aware of Thai Cafe.

Yang adds that the family is glad for the continued community support, especially last summer when road construction disrupted the steady flow of customers.

“We are really grateful this town has done for us,” he says. “We hope to continue to serve quality Thai food to everyone.”

Find Thai Cafe is in Campus Plaza, 1219 E. Front St. in Traverse City. (231) 642-5166; tcthaicafe.com