![\"love](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/love-thai-opening.jpg\")
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Anna Nguyen and David Rasavong (center) are joined by community members at the grand opening for their new restaurant, Love & Thai, on Nov. 5, 2023. Photo by Gabriel Dillard<\/p>\n
Fresno restaurateur David Rasavong may have another dining concept in the works, according to a new lease report.<\/p>\n
Rasavong is the owner of Banzai Japanese Bar & Kitchen in the Tower District and Southeast Fresno\u2019s Love & Thai<\/a>, which relocated and rebranded in 2024 after falling victim to baseless accusations that the family restaurant served dog meat.<\/p>\n Rasavong\u2019s Elev8te Hospitality, LLC, recently signed a lease for a 2,050-square-foot retail space at 5754 N. First St., south of Bullard Avenue in the former S21 Sushi & Sake Bar location. Shane Sousa of Retail California was the agent in cooperation with Amber Holscher of Commercial Retail Associates.<\/p>\n Efforts to reach Rasavong, who is also a co-owner of Satay Thai Kitchen and Bar in north Fresno, were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Rasavong and his wife Anna Nguyen cut the ribbon on Love & Thai at 4281 E. Butler Ave. in November 2023, six months after a video posted on Facebook showed a dog tied up in front of a house next door to Tasty Thai, their previous restaurant near First and Belmont avenues. The woman who posted the video suspected the dog was being neglected. Soon, online commenters began to suggest Tasty Thai was serving dog meat.<\/p>\n He said the ensuing hate storm didn\u2019t feel real, but his family chose to draw on the support that soon followed in the form of encouraging messages from the public, elected officials and organizations including The Fresno Center and the state Attorney General\u2019s office.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amount of love and kindness we received is something we wish upon everyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rasavong is also a co-owner of The Lincoln Pub & Grub<\/a>, and next door to that Tower hotspot he opened his Japanese sushi concept, Banzai Japanese Bar and Kitchen<\/a>, in 2021.<\/p>\n \t\t\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anna Nguyen and David Rasavong (center) are joined by community members at the grand opening for their new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-250845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}