After nearly 40 years as a Thai food pioneer in Dallas-Fort Worth, Thai Soon is closing. Soon Chanchaisri (left) started the restaurant in the 1980s in Dallas and passed it to her daughter Ararin “Irean” Wongchingchai.
Juan Figueroa/Staff Photographer
Thai Soon will serve its last plates of plates of pad Thai, red curry and basil fried rice in Richardson, then close after dinner on Aug. 23, 2026.
Owner Ararin “Irean” Wongchingchai said shuttering the restaurant her mom started nearly 40 years ago was “the most difficult decision of my life.”
She fretted for months that she is quitting on her mother’s legacy, but she doesn’t see an alternative. Thai Soon isn’t profitable.
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Ararin “Irean” Wongchingchai answers a phone order from a customer at Thai Soon in Richardson. As the owner of a struggling restaurant, she is now the only cook, server and cashier left.
Juan Figueroa/Staff Photographer
The restaurant started on Dallas’ Greenville Avenue in 1987. It was named after Wongchingchai’s mother, Soon Chanchaisri, who worked in its kitchen for years before she retired and devoted herself to cooking at the Buddhist Temple of Dallas. The family moved Thai Soon to Coit Road, near Belt Line, in Richardson, where it has served generous portions of food from a small storefront for 26 years.
The restaurant struggled, Wongchingchai told The Dallas Morning News in February. Wongchingchai isn’t selling enough food to make rent, and she owes $10,000 to the landlord. To save money, she’s the sole cook and server in the kitchen and has but one employee, a dishwasher. Wongchingchai hoped to partner with a new investor or restaurateur who could offer ideas of how to balance her finances, and she traveled to Thailand this summer to discuss the business with friends and family and ask for help.
A buyer never materialized. Wongchingchai, a single mother of three, is overwhelmed.
“It’s just me, running everything,” she said in February 2026. That’s still true six months later.
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She tried to make changes at Thai Soon to bring in more money, but after working six days a week, she said she felt exhausted and confused about what to do next.
“My numbers are consistent, but they’re not growing,” she said. “The landlord said, ‘How are you going to make that change? ‘”
She sighed. “I don’t know how to make that change.”
Red curry with chicken is one of Thai Soon’s specialties.
Juan Figueroa/Staff Photographer
She didn’t raise prices, even as the cost of ingredients went up. “I didn’t want my customers to have to worry to eat here,” she said.
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She sighed again. “That was a dumb business move,” she said. She also questioned whether raising each dish a few bucks would have saved the restaurant.
“It’s my business,” she said, “and it didn’t feel right.”
Irean Wongchingchai prepares pad see ew with shrimp on the wok at her restaurant Thai Soon in Richardson.
Juan Figueroa/Staff Photographer
Wongchingchai believes she might need to file for bankruptcy after the restaurant closes in late August. There’s a chance she opens a catering kitchen someday, but she also struggles to dream up what could be next.
“There’s no dream. This is it; this was my life,” she said. “I was born in it, I grew up in it. Going forward? I have no idea.”
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Thai Soon is at 101 S. Coit Road, Suite 401, Richardson. Open for lunch and dinner. The restaurant is usually closed Sundays, but it will be open seven days a week until its closure on Aug. 23, 2026.