Three years after its original location closed on the corner of North Winooski Avenue and Pearl Street in Burlington, East West Café is back in a new, larger space at 169 Church Street.
Chef Samran Kaewkoet-Richland and her husband, Brett Richland, operated East West Café for six years before Brett suffered a stroke caused by genetic mitochondrial disease, leading to the Thai restaurant’s closure in 2021. Now Kaewkoet-Richland is back in the kitchen, and Brett’s brother, Spencer Richland, has joined her as co-owner and manager. In addition to the chef’s classic Thai dishes — available for lunch and dinner — the café will soon roll out a separate morning menu with breakfast sandwiches, Parmesan potatoes, and fruit and yogurt bowls.
“We’ll have endless coffee and Wi-Fi, a real morning café,” Spencer told Seven Days. “I’m trying to add the East-West contrast, doing the Western breakfast. That’s my thing.”
Formerly home to El Gato Cantina — and currently separated from the rest of Church Street by Main Street construction — the restaurant can seat up to 85 diners. That’s significantly more than the original East West Café, which had only a few tables, Spencer said. The owners have kept the former restaurant’s bar, but the new operation is currently BYOB.
Kaewkoet-Richland’s Thai menu is “very similar” to her previous iteration, Spencer said, including larb gai salad, tom yum soup, pad kra pow, a rainbow of curries, and classic noodle dishes such as pad Thai and drunken noodles.
The breakfast menu will be available from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Thai offerings start at 11 a.m.
The original print version of this article was headlined “East West Café Returns in a Different Burlington Spot”
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2024.
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