New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Thai restaurant puts face masks on the menu
WEST HAVEN — Takeout customers at Sri Thai Restaurant are getting a free side of three-layer, washable face mask with their pad thai, sukiyaki or anything else they order to go.
And if they want more of the brightly-colored handmade fabric masks – or just a mask a la carte — they can buy them for $10 each.
Customers are raving about the restaurant’s soft, stylish face masks as passionately as they are about the authentic Thai food modeled after the owners’ mother’s home cooking.
“I’m helping people a little and in this situation we have to help each other,” said Rachanee Netsuwan, who owns the restaurant along with her brother, Paul Netsuwan. “Everybody needs something.”
The masks are also a way to make a few extra dollars in these tough times, she said.
Sri Thai, 315 York St., the city’s first Thai restaurant, opened only five months before restaurant dining rooms in Connecticut were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The eatery had been off to a nice, steady start.
When the order to wear face masks in public was issued by Gov. Ned Lamont in recent weeks, Rachanee Netsuwan tried to order them, but there was a two-month wait.
Luckily, just as she and her brother learned the art of fresh, homemade traditional Thai
cooking from their mother, who still lives in Thailand, mom had also taught Rachanee Netsuwan how to sew clothes for her dolls as a youngster.
She took out her Brother sewing machine that she hadn’t used for years and made masks for herself, family and friends. Then she thought about keeping their customers safe and put one in each takeout order.
“Customers would come back and say, they want more,” telling her the masks were pretty and well-made.
Then word of the masks started getting out to the public.
Netsuwan set up her machine in the restaurant dining room, ordered brightly colored and print design fabric and began producing the masks during slow work times. She uses 100 percent cotton fabric, and a pattern that allows for nose comfort and minimizes steaming of eyeglasses. The mask comes with a washable filter. If the restaurant isn’t busy, she can make 10 masks a day. Her brother can draw the pattern when he’s not busy, she said.
“They’re selling pretty good. One of my good customers bought a lot of them for his employees,” she said.
Customer Kathie Hawtin of West Haven said she’s 59 and never had
Thai food before trying Sri Thai because she knew Paul Netsuwan, and now she’s ordering twice a week.
Hawtin said the face masks are “beautiful” and she bought three for herself, mom and daughter.
And the food? Crab rangoon, coconut soup and deep-fried shrimp with sweet chile sauce are her favorites.
“The food is phenomenal, everything is fresh in there. Everyone who eats there goes back,” Hawtin said. “You would hate to see a little business like that go out of business.”
The siblings worked in restaurants for 10 years, saving to open one of their own – it was their dream. The siblings last worked as general managers at two separate Denny’s. Neither Rachanee, 39, nor Paul Netsuwan, 38, are married.
“In his dream he wanted to open a small restaurant so we could work together,” Rachanee Netsuwan said. “It was a dream come true, suddenly five months later” the pandemic hit.
Kallayanee Williams, originally from Thailand, knows the pair through the Thai business community and said the food is so good, so authentic, she travels all the way from Wallingford to support the business.
“My heart goes out to them because of the virus,” she said, noting all those years of hard work and saving money, only to have a pandemic hit. “I feel so bad for them.”
Williams said she was also touched
by the free masks with takeout orders, and then elated to get one that her adult son with autism will actually keep on his face because it’s soft, comfortable and has the right color and print.
“She knows how to sew; they are wonderful materials,” Williams said.
Dale Mulford of West Haven so enjoys the food – his mother is Thai – that he gets takeout from Sri Thai Restaurant just about every other day. He likes that the restaurant will customize dishes to a customer’s taste.
Mulford, an occupational therapist in a New York nursing home without one case of COVID-19, said he wears medical-grade masks at work, but wears his Sri Thai mask to do errands.
“They’re very nice, they have an inside (washable) layer,” Mulford said. “I think they have a brilliant idea. It’s a way to help the community and give them some extra money.”
Netsuwan said she called her mother after she started making the face masks and thanked her for teaching her how to sew.
“She’s really, really happy I’m helping out,” Netsuwan said. “Thanks to her for saying, ‘Sit down, I’ll teach you how to sew.’”
People can request or order masks by calling the restaurant at 203-3905814, by visiting them at 315 York St. or emailing Netsuwan01@hotmail.com.