MISSOULA - Two decades of traditional Thai cuisine at a Missoula restaurant will see a change this fall.
Sa Wad Dee will close its location on West Broadway on Sept. 1, 2023, and move full-time to a food truck.
The date will also mark the official retirement of the restaurant’s founder, Sumalee Foy, who is happy to pass on the legacy to her daughter.
Foy immigrated from Thailand in 1984 with two of her three daughters, the youngest being just 10 months old.
She didn’t know anything about the U.S., including English, but within 15 years she opened Sa Wad Dee — by herself.
She bought the space from her friend’s husband and has been cooking her family recipes there ever since.
More than passing on cooking techniques, the restaurant business is part of the Foy family tradition.
Sumalee’s two brothers and sister own restaurants as well, and they all use what they learned from their mom’s cooking.
“My mom, all the food she made, she would make on her shoulder, and after that, we kind of hoped she would let us do that,” Sumalee says. “After that, that’s why all my family likes to cook.”
Foy has three daughters, two of whom live in Montana and one in Minnesota. Her daughter, Netnapit Penny, joined Sa Wad Dee in 2008.
“It’s really great because you know, you could never get fired,” Penny jokes.
Still, it’s been just as hard as enjoyable working with her mother.
“Every single family business, regardless of what kind of business, there’s always struggle with power,” she says. “It’s the opposite of what people may think. In a family business, you have to work harder. I don’t know if that’s just in Asian families, but in an Asian family, you have to work harder than anyone else, because how are your employees going to respect you if you don’t work hard?”
For Sumalee, a food truck is a great transition for her daughter. She hopes it will be easier to sustain.
“That’s why [the] food truck is good for her, this is too big," she says. "I know how hard it is to work in the restaurant. That’s why I say, no. Don’t do it.”
After 26 years of hard work, Sumalee is looking forward to retirement.
While she plans to still help with the food truck, Sumalee says she is most excited for a cross-country road trip, as she has never left Montana.
She also plans to visit her family in Thailand.
“You know, enjoy my life,” Sumalee says.
She will miss her customers more than anything, especially the regulars who come in almost every day just to say hello to Sumalee.
“Every morning, we come, we cook for all these people, everybody comes, we see the same regular customers and it’s like that every day for 27 years,” Penny says.
Penny bought the food truck in June of this year, and they’ve already used it a few times.
She says her goal is to have the best food truck in Missoula County by 2025.
They’ll continue to do Out to Lunch and Downtown Tonight, and the truck will often be at the Kettlehouse taproom.
“We’re not going out of business, I’m not going to change anything at all,” Penny says. “I’m carrying on the legacy.”
