Kennett Square will soon get a new restaurant, one that the owners hope fills a void in the town’s bustling culinary scene: Thai food. Jaruwanee Primo and her partner, Jason Dye, are set to open Café de Thai, an authentic Thai restaurant with modern flair, on West Cypress Street in late March of 2019.
The free-standing building has undergone a full renovation; PA restaurant real estate rock stars Jim Pinckney and Tess Scott of ZMCRE represented the owner and the tenants in the deal. Café de Thai will debut with an extensive menu, with classic dishes, like Tom Yum Soup and Panang Curry, as well as house specialties, like Kennett Pad Thai (Pad Thai with your choice of crispy spicy duck, jumbo lump crab meat or grilled salmon) and Fish Longwood (battered and fried fish filets on a potato bird nest with a house sauce). The restaurant space will be cozy and casual, with a lovely outdoor patio, and plenty of free street parking all around the building.
The chef behind this endeavor, Jaruwanee Primo, is a relative newcomer to the area, and brings with her an intriguing story and decades of experience.
Chef Jaruwanee Primo
Primo graduated from Wandee Culinary Art School in Bangkok at age 24, and since then has pretty much been non-stop cooking in her own restaurants. In June of 2002, she moved to the U.S. and opened her first Thai restaurant in Lake Tahoe, California.
“I loved being in the business,” says Primo, “but I sold to a friend after 11 years.” After splitting with her husband, she found it difficult to communicate by herself, and was often overwhelmed with paperwork when she wanted to be in the kitchen developing recipes.
Soon after, she moved to Los Angeles (Eldorado Hills), and opened a Thai restaurant there, and then opened her third restaurant in San Bernardino, California. In the years since, she’s opened three additional restaurants, including Sukhothai Bistro in Pittsburgh; but Primo says Pittsburgh never quite felt like home to her. After moving to the Philadelphia area in 2018, she and Dye took a day trip to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square. She immediately fell in love with the area.
“I still compare everything with Lake Tahoe, and I think Kennett Square is similar to Lake Tahoe,” she says. “When I first came here, I wondered, Why are there no Thai restaurant in this area? And then I told Jay, ‘I think it is going to be very good for me to be here.'”
Café de Thai, under renovations
The couple still lives in Philly, but plans to relocated to Kennett soon. Dye reports that Kennett area residents have already been showing their support, calling to ask when Café de Thai will open and sending emails to share their excitement for the restaurant.
“We’re going to use as much fresh, local ingredients as possible,” Dye says. “And everything will be made from scratch, to order.”
For Primo, after 20 years of running her own restaurants, she is still inspired to keep pushing and developing her flavors and techniques, and is thrilled to bring her experience to Kennett.
“For me, I never stop thinking about how to create new things for Thai food that still have an authentic flavor,” she says.
Once open, Café de Thai will be located at 420 W. Cypress St. in Kennett Square; phone: (610) 924-2828.
- Photos: James Pinckney
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