A restaurant owner has apologised after finding that the Thai language name he had given his eatery actually meant 'go away and don't come back'
Fred Bennett, the owner of Nelson’s Brewers bar and restaurant, had hired a Thai chef and asked for his advice on choosing a good name. The chef came up with a Thai phrase he said meant “Welcome and see you again”, and Bennett duly got a sign printed and installed outside the restaurant.
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Months went by before he started wondering why he’d served plenty of Westerners, but hardly any Thai people. The mystery was solved when his chef left and he hired a new one. The first thing she said was, “Why did you call your restaurant ‘Go Away and Don’t Come Back’?”
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“That’s why it pays to research,” Stuff.co.nz quoted Bennett as saying.
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Although he is happy he managed to get the words changed in time for Race Unity Day in Victory Square, Bennet - who has since changed the name to ‘Victory Thai’ - regrets that since then he’s heard of at least one woman who refused to eat there when she read his sign.
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“I’d like to apologise to the Thai community if I have offended them, which I’m pretty sure I would have,” he said.u00a0
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