UWS Thai Market Will Not Reopen at Amsterdam Location

By Lily Seltz

Thai Market, which has been closed since December because of a devastating fire that began elsewhere in the building, will not reopen, according to a message posted last week on the popular restaurant’s website.

The message attributed the closure to “building circumstances that [are] beyond our control.”

“Thai Market has always been more than a restaurant—it has been a place of friendship, memories, and community,” the message goes on. “We are deeply grateful for the love and support you have shown us over the years and especially during this difficult time. While we are not sure what the future holds, we will always cherish the memories and gratitude from this incredible community.”

The message replaced an earlier version asserting that the restaurant would reopen in June.

Danny Ngosuwan, Thai Market’s owner, told the Rag in an email that he initially had “high [hopes]” of reopening the restaurant. But, he wrote, his landlord had recently notified him that the building was beyond repair.

Ngosuwan, who said that Thai Market’s food and decor had been inspired by his childhood in Bangkok, also told the Rag that he had no plans to reopen the restaurant in a new location.

“There is only one Thai Market in my heart,” he said. “I will retire from [the] restaurant business after more than 37 years.”

Ngosuwan opened Thai Market at 960 Amsterdam Avenue, between West 107th and 108th streets, in 2007. It occupies the ground floor of a building whose main entrance is located around the corner at 201 West 107th Street — the same building destroyed by a four-alarm fire that broke out on the upper floors on December 9th. The FDNY has not yet released information on the cause of the blaze.

Thai Market’s regulars and ex-staff met the news of the restaurant’s closure with dismay, describing it as a uniquely cherished neighborhood institution.

Sarah Chiwaya first started eating at Thai Market as a student at Columbia. Even after she left the Upper West Side, she said, she and her husband have returned to the restaurant “at least every couple months.”

“It’s actually played a big part in our relationship,” she said. “It was one of [our] first dates … When we got home from our honeymoon, we literally took the cab from the airport to Thai Market.”

It was also the first place they dined outside during the pandemic after they got their COVID vaccines, Chiwaya said, praising the restaurant for its “good neighborhood vibe” and excellent food—especially the skirt steak with sticky rice.

Addressing Thai Market’s ownership and staff, Chiwaya added: “If [you’re] reading this, just know that you’re super loved. And many people really, really, really, really, really want to see you back.”

Christina D’Angelo, an Upper West Sider who lives three blocks away from Thai Market, was a regular from “day one”—when she passed by a menu posted outside the new restaurant and saw it served larb gai, a ground chicken and vegetable dish that D’Angelo says was at that time difficult to find in Manhattan.

She told the Rag that she and her husband ate at Thai Market between four and eight times a month during the last almost-two decades—and ordered the larb every time.

“It’s really become a home away from home for me and my husband,” D’Angelo said of the restaurant.

Over the years, she developed close relationships with many of the staff. She still does Pilates with Kathy Rider, a former bartender, she said. On the afternoon she spoke to the Rag, she was preparing to host Rider at her apartment for drinks.

“We’re devastated, not just for ourselves, but devastated for the workers and Mr. Danny, and all the people we’ve come to love there over the years,” D’Angelo told the Rag.

Rider, who started working at Thai Market in 2007 and remained there until the pandemic (she then briefly returned before departing most recently in 2024), described the restaurant as “beyond a workplace.”

“It’s a community,” she said. “We took care of each other.”

Rider made friends with many of her regular customers; some even clinched wedding invitations.

She has also remained in touch with many of her co-workers, who she said are doing well — “Thank God, it’s New York City. There are a lot of restaurants.” (Ngosuwan also told the Rag that he had offered all of employees nine weeks pay following the restaurant’s closure.)

But Rider maintained that Thai Market was special. “It’s a family,” she said. With the restaurant closed, she said, “It’s not the same anymore.”

Like Rider, D’Angelo also got to know many of the regulars at Thai Market: “professors from Columbia, students, retirees, people in finance, writers—all kinds of people.” Both she and Chiwaya said the restaurant was always busy and never seemed to be struggling, even during a uniquely difficult decade for the food and beverage industry. But Ngosuwan did acknowledge that food and labor costs had become prohibitively high over time.

Thai Market has witnessed the closure of other neighborhood institutions, like Absolute Bagels (now reopened under the moniker 2788 Bagels). When Absolute closed in December 2024, DiAngelo said, the workers, many of whom are Thai, came into Thai Market to commiserate in Thai with the restaurant’s staff.

D’Angelo recalls a Thai Market regular named John who used to sit at the bar and write or draw in his journal. When John passed away, Rider collected condolences in a book that she gave to John’s partner. The restaurant also memorialized John with a photo at the bar.

That wasn’t the only time Thai Market’s staff went above and beyond to celebrate their customers: When D’Angelo’s husband, Christopher Zara, published a memoir in 2023, the couple went to Thai Market to celebrate. The staff used their break time to run out to Book Culture on 112th Street for a copy for Zara to sign, and to bring the author flowers, D’Angelo said.

Thai Market makes an appearance in Zara’s memoir.

“We always got [the larb] extra-spicy and then added even more spices from the table caddie, reveling in the mood-boosting quality of the intense heat,” Zara writes. “Then one of us would remark about how much we loved Thai Market, a place where nothing bad ever happened.”

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