Thai Town Cafe 2 opens in Geneseo

GENESEO, Illinois – The Thai Town Cafe 2 has opened in this community. The restaurant opened Saturday, Feb. 22, at 103 S. State St., in the former Golden Garden Chinese Restaurant, which closed its doors Dec. 24. “It’s been explosive. The place has been packed with people so far,” Greg Kerner, one of Thai Town’s […]

GENESEO, Illinois – The Thai Town Cafe 2 has opened in this community. The restaurant opened Saturday, Feb. 22, at 103 S. State St., in the former Golden Garden Chinese Restaurant, which closed its doors Dec. 24. “It’s been explosive. The place has been packed with people so far,” Greg Kerner, one of Thai Town’s owners, said. He and his wife, Monthira, also own the Thai Town Cafe restaurant at 403 17th St. in Rapids City. That location will remain open, and chefs will split their time between the two business sites.

The expansion of a new restaurant in Geneseo has been in the works for months. Mr. Kerner first announced the new location in an video message last October on Thai Town Cafe’s Facebook page. He called the Geneseo site a “perfect” location for the business. “It’s all because of our customers. … You guys have made us who we are,” he said in the video. The Geneseo location is the latest expansion for the Kerners who began their entrepreneurial journey with a food truck at their rural Port Byron home before moving into Rapids City, and eventually renovating the current site.  The search for a second restaurant site began about two years ago when the Kerners opened the brick-and-mortar cafe in Rapids City. That opening was a success, and they immediately started plans for a second business site. Mr. Kerner added that he and his wife, who is a native of Thailand, chose Geneseo for a second location because it is a larger community in the region and the city's restaurant scene has been largely “focused on American food.” So, they believed there was room for a Thai restaurant. The restaurant owner told the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal on Thursday, Feb. 27, that he’s happy with the new restaurant, but it was a big challenge converting the downtown Geneseo building into Thai Town Cafe 2. He said some people assumed that transforming the building from a Chinese  to a Thai restaurant would be a relatively easy move. But that wasn't the case. “It’s vastly different. … There was a lot of equipment to change out,” he added. That hard work has been worth the price, because Geneseo now has a new place serving great food, Mr. Kerner said. “Thank you all so much for giving us such a warm welcome to Geneseo,” the owners wrote on the restaurant’s Facebook page. The new location has eight employees. It is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week, and closed on Mondays. It can be reached at (309) 944-5501. A few of the items on the menu include:

• Lad nah: Wild rice, noodle broccoli, carrot and your choice of meat in Thai style gravy sauce.
• Thai chicken noodle: Rice noodles in chicken broth served with chicken, cabbage and bean sprout. 
• Curry noodle: Stir-fried noodle with chicken, shrimp, broccoli, carrot, onions, egg, curry powder in homemade sauce.
• Pad woon sen: Stir-fried noodle with shrimp, chicken, mixed vegetables, egg in homemade sauce.
• Thai Town spaghetti: Spicy stir-fried spaghetti noodle with onion, bell pepper, carrot, basil, eggs, finger root, young green peppercorn.
• Mango chicken: Stir-fried chicken with mango, onion, bell pepper in sweet homemade sauce, topped with scallion.
• Tom yum noodle: Rice noodles in sour-spicy soup with mushrooms, tomatoes, scallion, cilantro, red onion, lime juice and kaffir lime leaves.