nsxtasy wrote:Giovanna wrote:I could swear that the Thai Room was the first and only for a while. Well, maybe not.
Apparently not. Thai Room's website says they have been around for 39 years, which is not as long as some others (see below). And it mentions the demise of their restaurant Thai Sookdee in Evanston, which only closed a couple of years ago, so I would assume the website is reasonably current, which means they opened around 1979.
Of course, a website might be wrong. For example, the current website for P.S. Bangkok in Lakeview says they've been around for 19 years. Maybe that's all for the current management, but I remember going there in the late seventies or early eighties, same location as current. And I remember that the service, at least on that occasion, left something to be desired, because from then on my friends and I referred to it as "Pretty Slow Bangkok".
I have a copy of the restaurant listings from several issues of Chicago Magazine from the 1970s. Not that they are comprehensive (although at that time they were pretty good), but if a restaurant was listed, we can assume it existed at that time.
July 1973 issue lists two Thai restaurants: Bangkok House and Thai Restaurant (that was its name)
June 1975 lists those two plus Bangkok
June 1978 lists those three plus Shanghai (which is listed as Thai, Filipino, Cantonese)
The Thai listings expanded in the few years, after that, because the January 1983 issue had added Rosded, Siam Cafe, Thai Cousin, Thai Little Home Cafe, Thai Room, and Thai Villa (and had dropped all but Bangkok House of the four previously listed).
In
a post from 2005 in this thread, I tentatively concluded Thai Restaurant (5143 N Clark) was Chicago's first predominantly-Thai restaurant (in 1972 or before), but Shanghai Restaurant (406 S Clark) might have offered a limited Thai menu somewhat before that.
In that 2005 post, Rene G wrote:So perhaps Thai Restaurant in Andersonville was the first mostly-Thai restaurant in Chicago (arguments about authenticity aside). Possibly Shanghai served some Thai dishes earlier.
I stand by that conclusion, and since that long-ago post I've found additional information on Chicago's earliest Thai restaurants that I think comes close to settling the issue.
A review of Thai Restaurant from July 1971 clearly states the restaurant opened the previous month. In a follow-up at the end of the year, the reviewer notes it was "the first in Chicago to serve this cookery, a blend of cuisine of India and China."
Bangkok House at 2455 W Devon came next, being opened in early 1973 (possibly late 1972) by one of the original partners from Thai Restaurant. "It's Chicago's second restaurant specializing in fare of Thailand."
I also found a review of Shanghai Restaurant – primarily a Chinese restaurant – from February 1971. Though the review focuses on Shanghai's Filipino offerings, a separate menu of Thai food is briefly mentioned: "It developed I had a menu listing Thai entrees. Miss Snead and Yates had a standard menu. I discarded the Thai menu and picked up another, which listed Filipino dishes." Clearly, Shanghai was serving some Thai food before Thai Restaurant opened.
The above evidence supports the conclusion I arrived at in 2005, but the new information allows it to be refined:
Thai Restaurant at 5143 N Clark became Chicago's first restaurant devoted to Thai food when it opened in June 1971. Before that, however, Shanghai Restaurant at 406 S Clark served some Thai dishes from a separate menu.Getting back to the
original question: Where does Thai Room fit in the chronology of early Chicago Thai restaurants? This still-existing restaurant at 4022 N Western opened in March 1978, according to a review from later that year. I've found evidence of at least 12 Thai restaurants (not including Shanghai) that opened in 1977 or before.
1971: Thai Restaurant
1973: Bangkok House
1975 or before: Bangkok Restaurant, Siamese Restaurant, Vachira (alphabetical order)
1976 or before: New Siam, Rosded, Siam Cafe, Sorndang Cafe, Thai Cousin, Thai Little Home Cafe (alphabetical order)
1977 or before: Thai Villa
That would place Thai Room no earlier than 13th in the progression of Thai restaurants in Chicago.