{"id":4321,"date":"2026-01-16T19:49:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/new-thai-restaurant-eat-thai-opens-in-ann-arbor\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T19:49:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:49:42","slug":"new-thai-restaurant-eat-thai-opens-in-ann-arbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/new-thai-restaurant-eat-thai-opens-in-ann-arbor\/","title":{"rendered":"New Thai restaurant Eat Thai opens in Ann Arbor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>As the holiday season settled over Ann Arbor, a new Thai restaurant was preparing to open its doors. Located on 322 S. Main St., <a href=\"https:\/\/eatthaiannarbor.com\/\">Eat Thai<\/a> opened Dec. 26, offering a menu curated by Chef and owner Teerawat Pho-On and his team. With numerous other Thai restaurants established across Metro Detroit, including <a href=\"https:\/\/tuptim.com\/\">Tuptim<\/a> Thai Cuisine in Ypsilanti, Pho-On wanted the Ann Arbor location to reflect the city itself, tailoring its menu and flavors to the local community.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Tom Gritter, Eat Thai\u2019s real estate broker, said a big part of the location search focused on choosing a space with high student foot traffic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI looked at five to 10 spaces for them in and around Ann Arbor,\u201d Gritter said. \u201cIt\u2019s a competitive restaurant space \u2014 students, as you know, have sophisticated taste. It\u2019s not a town where a McDonald\u2019s or chain restaurant is going to do well, but it is a spot that you\u2019re authentic in what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of Eat Thai\u2019s main goals is to create a casual, inviting environment for customers. In an interview with The Daily, Jay Armani, a management consultant for the restaurant, said Eat Thai\u2019s hopes to expand with outdoor seating in the future so customers can enjoy Ann Arbor\u2019s attractions, like live music.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>The restaurant is also looking to transition towards a full opening following the approval of their <a href=\"https:\/\/a2gov.legistar.com\/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6890395&amp;GUID=FA3AE26C-D459-4B75-8836-AA8C9F243B0D\">liquor license. <\/a>Armani said the team hopes to integrate the restaurant into Ann Arbor\u2019s nighttime food scene.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe started looking, and we were like \u2018wow, there\u2019s only a few Thai places here, but they close at a certain hour, and there\u2019s nothing late-night,\u2019\u201d Armani said.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Public Health junior Nadya Poisac-Nguyen said she enjoyed her experience eating at Eat Thai for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was very casual, very friendly,\u201d Poisac-Nguyen said. \u201cOur waiter was super friendly and smiley \u2026 (and) I really liked the menu. I thought they had a lot of really good options.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eat Thai currently offers a limited menu, but Armani said the restaurant is looking forward to expanding into a fuller menu and new business opportunities in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWe want to let folks know that for our future plans, we would like to do sushi,\u201d Armani said. \u201c(Pho-On) is thinking about doing a food truck or food trailer near Michigan Stadium, so when you walk right out of the stadium, you could have some Thai food.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Staff Reporter Erin Chow can be reached at erinchow@umich.edu<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Correction 1\/15: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect what restaurants Pho-On operates.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the holiday season settled over Ann Arbor, a new Thai restaurant was preparing to open its doors. Located on 322 S. Main St., Eat Thai opened Dec. 26, offering a menu curated by Chef and owner Teerawat Pho-On and his team. With numerous other Thai restaurants established across Metro Detroit, including Tuptim Thai Cuisine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[242,243,270,152,1712,1019],"class_list":{"0":"post-4321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-ann","9":"tag-arbor","10":"tag-eat","11":"tag-opens","12":"tag-restaurant","13":"tag-thai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4323,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321\/revisions\/4323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}