Quick Take
“We had a small budget to work with so we had to do a lot of our own work,” owner Dominick King said of getting My Thai Beach back up and running after the Capitola Village restaurant was battered by January storm surge. “By the grace of the support of the community, we got there.”
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After sustaining significant damage in January’s storms, My Thai Beach on the Esplanade in Capitola Village quietly reopened April 28 and is back to serving customers once more.
The remodeling took a lot of time and effort, and additional restoration is still underway, said owner Dominick King. Though the business received some funding from local organizations, it didn’t get much in the way of state or federal funding.
“We had a small budget to work with so we had to do a lot of our own work,” said King. “By the grace of the support of the community, we got there.”
My Thai Beach was started 14 years ago by King’s mother, Pronpimol “Pinky” Suwonsupar. These days, King runs much of the operations, while his mother focuses on the cooking.
“I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when she saw the devastation,” King wrote in a fundraiser launched to support the restoration. “We not only lost our business but also our home away from home. … We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from our community in the wake of this disaster.”
Among other work, the restaurant’s flooring had to be redone, along with the interior walls, decor and a lot of tiling, he said. The exterior still needs to be redone, including replastering and repainting. Currently, visitors to the restaurant can see the remains of old signage that was uncovered during the restoration process. My Thai Beach will be getting a new sign and a new paint job along with neighboring businesses Pizza My Heart, The Sand Bar and Bay Bar & Grill. The latter two businesses remain closed for repairs.
“We’re really happy to be back,” King said Monday. “Progress has been good and the community has been awesome. … The village is getting back on its feet.”
