Aroy Thai was set to be the newest addition to the city’s growing number of dining options.
The College Avenue restaurant opened at least two weeks ago, but all signs — apart from the one fixed to the storefront — indicate it did not stay that way.
The display cases next to the register are filled with soda; the hours are taped to the door and mock-ups of dishes are on display in the window. Everything seems ready, but its doors have remained locked and calls to the establishment have gone unanswered.
Nothing indicates that we got the wrong opening date. Aroy Thai’s website does not say “coming soon”; shopcollegepark.org claims the restaurant is “Now Open!” Nobody seems to know the answer to why this restaurant is not open.
It’s an interesting tactic. Perhaps the owners plan to build anticipation for as long as possible, displaying rows of plastic-wrapped dishes in their windows to tease passerby who might actually want to eat something.
Or maybe they’ve adopted a daring business technique in which they advertise normal hours but are actually only open 15 minutes every Tuesday.
The small restaurant, nestled between On Cloud 9 and an empty retail space with “for lease” signs in the window, shares the block with other dining venues such as Papa John’s and Wasabi Bistro. None of
Aroy Thai’s neighbors have seen or heard anything in the back alley shared by the building and have yet to see anyone working to open the restaurant.
Aroy Thai has a sister restaurant, Thai Tanium, in Gaithersburg. Calls to that establishment about the state of Aroy Thai have also gone unanswered.
For now, if any student wants to test whether Aroy Thai really offers “The BEST Thai Food in College Park,” they’ll just have to wait.
— Morgan Gilliam is a graduate student and blogger for The Diamondback
