What could be hotter than walking through Chatuchak market in summer? Not much you’d think, but add spicy food to the mix and the temperature does seem to rise.
Now what could be even hotter than sitting red-faced over a plate of som tam in a place where air-conditioning is just a distant dream? Try having your salad served by topless young men with Adonis-like bodies.
The combination of spicy food and hot bods is the main attraction at Som Tam Tad Arbsap, a stall that is becoming hard to miss in Chatuchak Plaza, near Gate 1 of the weekend market. Many customers, especially women, seem to be able to find their way to the stall without knowing the exact location, down one of the plaza’s narrow sois at the start of Kamphaeng Phet 2 Road.
A large crowd, and seemingly endless queue, is drawn to the loud music and a singing som tam vendor dressed in a traditional Thai likay folk costume, replete with glitter and fake diamonds. The restaurant is hot right now, in more ways than one. But its recipe for success is not about what’s on the menu — it’s about the waiters.
Tasty: Staff put together the main meal, som tam.
TONY’S ANGELS
The stall is the brainchild of Charoensak “Tony” Prosrichai, who admits to having struggled in the restaurant business since moving to Bangkok from Roi Et. He came up with the idea of using sex appeal to sell his secret-recipe som tam, but was worried that having topless waiters for their own sake would seem exploitative.
Realising that Chatuchak’s main customers are tourists, he decided to incorporate Thai culture into his branding. Tony went to Phahurat, aka little India, the city’s largest fabric hub, and set his imagination to work.
He came up with a Thai angel theme for the waiters, who wear blue and gold patterned skirts and an elaborate traditional necklace with jewelled pendant. The look is completed by gold arm and wrist bands.
Pisit “Amp” Setsri, 25, is one of the fit young men who are the restaurant’s stars. He has a full-time job as a fully-clothed waiter at a Bangkok hotel and works for Tony at Som Tam Tad Arbsap on the weekends. He told Brunch that the two jobs are completely different.
“At the hotel, I have to be professional. But here I can be myself and interact more with customers,” he explained.
Amp said the customers want to eat good food while having fun with the staff. Besides taking orders and serving food, all waiters have to pose for pictures with customers and keep them happy.
“There are a lot of people who come here to eat, while many come here to just have their photo taken with us,” Amp said.
Tony originally created the strategy with the idea of attracting women, and that has worked, but a larger than expected number of customers are gay men. (And, we suspect, the curious.)
Daisy, an openly gay 20-year-old university student, and his three friends are repeat customers. They said they usually stop by for lunch whenever they hang out at Chatuchak market.
“I'll admit that we came to see the waiters at first. But once I tried the food, I have to say that is the reason we keep coming back,” Daisy said.
As much as Tony wants to sell the look of his sexy waiters, he has no desire or intention to sell their bodies. “There are many people who have sent me messages on Facebook and Line asking how much I sell the waiters for a night,” Tony explained angrily. “I told them I am an honest businessman, not a pimp.”
Tony exposes anyone who contacts him with lewd and lascivious intentions by capturing the conversation and posting it on his Facebook page. He said he does it to shame people who try to abuse his waiters, and prevent others from following suit.
Food for thought: Tony and his staff of well-built and colourfully-dressed young men at the Som Tam Tad Arbsap restaurant are popular with locals and tourists, who also love the food.
FAILED ATTEMPTS
Tony was only 19 when he moved to Bangkok from Roi Et in 1996. At the time, he told himself he would do anything to survive in the big city.
The young Tony started off with just enough money to fund his university studies, so was keen to make more cash through some kind of small business.
He sold watches on the streets in the Ramkhamhaeng area where he lived. He also sold cloth that he bought wholesale. He turned his hand to any money-making endeavour with only one rule: it must be legal.
Tony became adept at juggling many things. While studying, he worked at least two jobs at any one time, in order to save enough money to set up his own business. Despite the workload, he managed to graduate with a master’s degree in business administration from an international university.
With a strong business background and a high level of education, Tony was determined to become his own boss. But most of his early attempts faltered. Tony tried new and fresh ideas, mostly relating to food, but none of them caught on as he hoped.
Tony found success importing cigarettes and cigarette-making kits, a business which made a profit and allowed him to expand and hire more staff. Unfortunately, this good run came to an end thanks to the financial troubles caused by the anti-government protests and political turmoil of late 2013 and early 2014.
He had 12 employees to pay at 15,000 baht each every month, but the company’s earnings had been slashed. Tony maintained his passion and will to fight, but was left with little money.
FRESH IDEA
The budding entrepreneur turned to selling congee and soup outside his company office in the Ramkhamhaeng area. That didn’t go well either. He sat down and started to think of ways to increase revenue. After two days of brainstorming, Tony came up with a simple idea.
Besides the company in Ramkhamhaeng, he was also renting a shop in Chatuchak Plaza as a distribution centre for his cigarette business. He decided to turn that space into a som tam restaurant, since he was confident in his skills as a cook.
Hailing from Isan, Tony had tried every som tam restaurant in his neighbourhood and came to the conclusion that no one in Bangkok could make som tam as good as his. He compared many kinds of som tam to see what was missing and developed his own special recipe based on his research.
Then came the gimmick: the costumes.
“If I dressed up like you, I wouldn’t be able to attract any customers,” Tony said. “You can get som tam anywhere, but you can’t get it with this flavour.”
Tony needed something new, and he thought the easiest way to attract people was by using himself as a mascot.
“Many people said I look like [the singer] Ead Ponglang Saon, so I developed that image by growing a goatee and wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt with a sarong that looks like it belongs to a Scottish bagpipe player,” Tony said.
His idea worked, and there were soon customers at his som tam restaurant. But he felt he could do better, and mapped out a marketing strategy to boost his business further.
He started by identifying the fact that women were his biggest customers. Before long, he realised that eye candy could be as appealing as the food itself, so he hired some hunky men as waiters.
But handsome men with great bodies shouldn’t stay hidden in their clothes, so Tony told his staff to satisfy all those hungry female customers by going topless.
The first day Tony launched his new idea, the restaurant made 70,000 baht. He knew it had been the right move.
FUTURE PLANS
Now the restaurant is a big hit, Tony can earn as much as 190,000 baht per day. He has received international media exposure and been invited to exhibit his food and business idea in London.
“I am glad that my business is going well, but what makes me happier is that I get to promote Thai culture,” Tony said. He wants to do more to promote Thailand through his food.
The restaurant’s seating area is now just a series of plastic tents, umbrellas, tables and chairs, but he is planning to invest 400,000 baht to build a wooden pavilion with a golden roof, with wooden tables and chairs.
Nearly a year after starting his som tam restaurant, it has become one of the most talked about in Bangkok and generates a healthy income for him and his staff.
But, unlike other ventures, Tony has no intention of moving inside an air-conditioned shopping mall, since he wants to keep Chatuchak market colourful.
He might sell his idea as a franchise, he said, so long as he can control the quality of the food, but the original Som Tam Tad Arbsap will remain at the location it was born. n
