Restaurateur Lee Chai's 18-month-old Thai restaurant,
Hot Basil, had built such a solid customer base by its first anniversary that his landlord came to him with an offer he couldn't refuse.
"The tanning salon next door to us was moving out," Chai says. "My landlord knew we needed more space and made me a very nice offer. We'll be opening our second dining room by this weekend."
This new dining room will add five or six new tables to the restaurant, increasing the seating by 15 or 16. The real benefit to the restaurant, Chai says, will be to make the main dining room feel much less cramped.
"We'll have a hostess stand near the front door and a place for customers waiting for a table," he says. "We couldn't make the dining area too much bigger because our kitchen can only handle so many customers at once. But dining here will be much more comfortable."
Chai's success comes at a time when his former business partner at the Thai Place restaurants, Ann Liberda, was forced to sell at least two of her former locations because of issues with the Internal Revenue Service.
Chai has bittersweet feelings about this turn of events. He purchased new chairs for his restaurant from the sale of furnishings held at the old 119th Street Thai Place location. "Ann is a great restaurateur," he says, "but this is a difficult time to be in the restaurant business. I was even hesitant about expanding into the space next door, but our business has grown so much that I
had to do it for our customers."
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