Our History

By Sammy

In October 2013, Pat and Nimo were feeling scorned. They had recently been cheated out of a café they helped create and they wanted to make their own space. They sought a location, designed the logo, created a menu, fitted out the location and opened the door to what they called The Hideout. It was a relaxed café environment where people chill out, drink coffee, chat and eat food. They worked hard and, in January 2014, they married and realised they longed for a different direction so they put The Hideout up for sale. Allow me to scoot you back in time again and talk about Waew's path.

April 2013 sees Waew return to Thailand after living in Japan for 15 years. She quickly gained employment working in the reception of a serviced apartment building. Waew became unhappy with her role and decided to quit although she had no idea what to do next. There were some very well paid jobs available liaising with Japanese tourists but something didn't feel right. To this day, neither Waew nor I know how the idea of looking for a restaurant came about. We were looking indifferently. No real intention. Just seeing what was out there.

Around the beginning of March, Waew and I went to see what Pat and Nimo had created. The restaurant was not open for trade. We talked with them for a while, took a few photos then left. Being a foreigner, I knew I was unable to legally work in Thailand so the onus of the decision was on Waew. Friends of mine had shared their restaurant employment/management experiences with me and I had seen enough reality shows about chefs to know that it's a massive undertaking. I talked with Waew about the intensity and effort required to run a successful restaurant and she seemed to get it. Over the following 14 days or so I probably asked her around 50 times, "are you sure you want to do this?" Waew never answered quickly. She contemplated before responding. To my surprise her response was yes, every single time. With commitment confirmed and a successful tasting of the amazing bagels Pat and Nimo had created, the gruelling negotiations concluded with Waew and I becoming the new owners of The Hideout. Neither of us had any experience in a restaurant kitchen or managing a restaurant. Neither of us knew what we were doing.

We both loved the relaxed atmosphere Pat and Nimo came up with and decided to keep it that way. The recipes Pat and Nimo handed over were wonderful. Over many years I worked on developing a keen sense of taste and improving my knowledge of ingredients and cooking techniques. After tasting the recipes I felt there was still some room for recipe tweaking. After tasting my first recipe improvement Waew jumped on board and the tweak train left the station! A few friends had complimented me on my cooking in the past but it was by no means certain that my sense of taste was even acceptable to a larger audience. Given this level of uncertainty, our very limited budget and our non-existant experience, I floated a policy so bizarre that some friends thought I was nuts – we do almost nothing to improve the restaurant aesthetics and, instead, make the food as good as I could get it. I suggested this to Waew and she responded with her signature, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" So, at the beginning of June 2014, The Hideout opened for business and the recipe tweaking continued with fervour.

Our TripAdvisor ranking was somewhere around #150 or lower so we had no expectation of being busy. Our first customer was Pete, a lovely Swiss gentleman who was staying in a guesthouse down the street. He thought our restaurant was convenient and he visited every day to buy a latte, which he seemed to enjoy. At one point, Pete and I held The Great Müsli Experiments to figure out a fast way to tenderise grains in muesli so it was more pleasant to eat. People that visited were kind enough to give us valuable feedback and we put the feedback into action immediately. Waew and I decided to never talk to guests about TripAdvisor nor have any reminders for them to post reviews. We wanted our TripAdvisor page to reflect what people actually feel rather than it be driven by marketing. Over time, the trickle of guests started to post reviews on TripAdvisor. First was a five star review on June 14. Then another on July 3. We were over the moon with excitement! Our little restaurant has received two 5 star reviews! As funny as that was, we were receiving a tremendous response and we figured we might actually have a chance.

I had been learning Thai language at Chiang Mai University's Language Institute for just over three months and had befriended two new friends, Fred and Franck. Well defined characters with all the right quirks. Fred was (and still is) retired and Franck... well... I can't put it into words. "Enigma" is possibly the only suitable word. Both of these wonderful gentlemen offered to contribute their talents to help improve the restaurant aesthetics. Fred painted all of the artwork on the front doors and Franck started the wall transformation.

The kitchen we had was behind the building on land that was not owned by our landlord. One fine August day, the owner of Baan Chinnakarn came to inform Waew that he had purchased the land behind our building and that he wanted us to move our stuff out of there in three days. Our jaws dropped. Thankfully, our neighbours were also using areas on that land and they negotiated a three month timeframe.

At the end of October 2014 we had received another eight reviews and all of them 5 star. Looming over us was our imminent kitchen renovation. Thankfully, the reviews and face-to-face feedback had given us some confidence that the kitchen renovation costs would be recoverable. So, out of nowhere, Fred informs me that he had worked as a restaurant kitchen designer and he proceeded to patiently guide me in designing the new space. Construction began in November and took a couple weeks because we didn't want to close the restaurant while it was being constructed. Around this time we were ranked somewhere between #50 and #30 on TripAdvisor.

Two weeks after our renovation deadline, the owner of Baan Chinnakarn demolished the structures on his new land and erected a wall 10 centimetres (4 inches) from our back wall blocking our gutter drainage. We had to buy new guttering, it was installed and he then increased the height of the wall pushing our new gutter upwards so the water flows into our building. He totally ignored Waew's request to fix it in the same way an elite person would treat a poor person – by pretending to not listen. To this day, he has built nothing in place of the structure that was our kitchen.

Towards the end of December 2014 we had three staff (including Waew) and The Hideout reached #2 on TripAdvisor for the first time via a mix of 4 and 5 star reviews. One late December day, a family of five entered the restaurant. They had two separate tables and they chatted with me about this and that. Two days later, on December 26, The Hideout received its first 3 star review from the mother of that family. I'm sure the lady intended it to be constructive. Unfortunately for us, our ranking dropped to #23 immediately and our sales went down by 80%. That was how we entered the new year, 2015.