When Terry (the OZZY guy) & Sopa (the shy THAI) met in 2013
Terry was driving semi trailer trucks around Melbourne and Sopa
was making the Som Tum dishes for the customers at a Thai
restaurant in Abbotsford. After a lot of first time experiences
through cultural learning and social interacting, the most
significant first time experience for both Terry & Sopa was on
March 30 2014, when Terry's mum, Civil Celebrant Bev Knowles,
announced them as husband & wife in front of around 80 guests,
that included a strong attendance from the Thai community, in the
rotunda at the picturesque Civic Gardens in the Victorian country
town of Warragul, followed by the reception that booked out the
dining room at Leggies Hotel in Moe...
of theirs
that one day they would open up a restaurant together. Although
Terry had never really experienced Sopa's restaurant cooking
skills, there was no shortage of people telling him how good she
can cook. What started off as a random topic of conversation on
the odd occassion, turned into the main topic of nearly every
conversation in the coming months ahead. So, when the opportunity
& timing came together, Sopa asked Terry to look around for a
restaurant. The excited reply was "OF COURSE", and was quickly
followed by the naive reply of "HOW HARD CAN IT BE"!!!
Around 6 months of looking, and the learning that will still
continue for a long time to come, while Terry was at the St Kilda
City Football Club ( the Peanut Farm ) waiting for his son, Dylan
to run onto the ground with the rest of the Collingwood Knights
football team to play the Grand Final, an advertisement for an
Indian Restaurant with a 1 bedroom apartment in St Kilda caught
his attention & a time was arranged to look at it after
Dylan's football game...
the
commitment to take on the obvious, & the oblivious challenges
together and, after a 2 week closure where some of Terry's &
Sopa's family, and others, did an amazing job of renovating, what
was that Indian restaurant with a 1 bedroom apartment in St Kilda,
at Midday on November 25, 2016 the doors opened for the very first
day of trading as OZZYTHAI Cafe Bar
Restaurant, with the description 'Enjoy the AUTHENTIC flavours of
TRADITIONAL Thai food by Sopa' and their objective being 'OUR aim
is for YOU to ENJOY our FOOD & SERVICE so much that YOUR aim
will be to ENJOY it AGAIN... & AGAIN'...
Oh, by the way, the Collingwood Knights won the Grand Final too
:)
