After more than two decades in Mission, a longtime Thai eatery is heading further west.

Locally owned Thai Orchid will close its Mission restaurant later this year, before relocating the restaurant to the newly-built Marigold Plaza in Shawnee.

Thai Orchid is going to downtown Shawnee

• The restaurant will reopen in a space just off 59th Street and Nieman Road in downtown Shawnee.
• There, Thai Orchid will be near Marigold Liquor at the redeveloped Marigold Plaza.
• Thai Orchid will also be just across 59th Street from McLain’s Market.
• The restaurant’s new hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Thai Orchid will reopen in Shawnee in October

When the restaurant reopens this fall, it will be open every day of the week — serving dishes customers have already come to know and love, like “crying tiger” fried rice, pad Thai, and curries.

Though the new menu is still being finalized for Shawnee, owner Jonathan Rojjanasrirat told the Post that it will have some new additions, such as crispy pork belly and some crab appetizers.

Rojjanasrirat said downtown Shawnee had been a desirable destination for the restaurant for a while. That’s in part because his own family lives in Shawnee.

“We’ve always loved the energy in the downtown area,” he said via a release this week. “We’ve been hoping to find the right opportunity here for the past few years, and when the chance came up to be part of the newly remodeled Marigold building, it just felt like the perfect fit.”

Given that the newly-built space is a “blank canvas”, Thai Orchid’s owners will have the chance to fully reimagine it. That’s a job for Nuttaphat “Aom” Stonnisgul, co-owner of Thai Orchid and Rojjanasrirat’s wife.

“(Stonnisgul) has a clear vision for this space, and it’s been exciting to watch it come to life,” said Rojjanasrirat via the release. “We’re pulling in furniture and artwork directly from Thailand to give it real character, and the patio will be a big part of the experience. We want it to feel authentic and comfortable.”

At nearly 4,000 square feet, the new space will also be a significant size upgrade — up from roughly 1,700 square feet in Mission.

“I think one of the problems in Mission that we struggle with, and that people have come to accept, is that with a very small kitchen, sometimes we get busy and we can’t really turn the tables or we just can’t push food out as fast as we’d like,” Rojjanasrirat told the Post. “With the larger kitchen capacity, we should be able to be much more efficient, and people will have a much better experience.”

Thai Orchid is part of a Shawnee redevelopment

The restaurant serves as the first new tenant to come on board at the redeveloped Marigold Plaza. The only other tenant in the shopping center is a liquor store that was renamed and relocated last summer from the aging part of the plaza into a brand-new space a few doors down.

The Karra family, owners of Marigold Liquor, redeveloped the aging shopping center with the help of Shawnee developer Kevin Tubbesing of Stag Commercial.

With Marigold Liquor and Thai Orchid, there’s still room for one or two additional tenants at the roughly 16,000-square-foot shopping center.

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