Owner Haim Danous

Career : The Thai Square Restaurant Group is run and owned by Chief Executive Haim Danous. Haim opened his first restaurant in the Strand in 1998, and the group is now celebrating their 10th anniversary with the opening of their new branch in Covent Garden. For the last 25 years, Haim’s main business has been commercial and residential property development. His business partner, Michael Cohen, emigrated to the USA six years ago and is working in New York looking after the group’s property business there, while Haim concentrates on the property development and restaurant business here in the UK. Unusually, Haim owns all the properties in which the restaurants are situated. Haim found a niche in the restaurant market when he realised that most Thai restaurants were rather old fashioned. Some of the food was good, but the presentation and the food hygiene were often poor. Haim decided to tackle the restaurant business from two sides. Firstly, by working on the ambience of the restaurant, combining hi-tech European design with traditional Thai design, creating modern, stylish restaurants which were enhanced with Thai artefacts. Secondly, he brought over some of the best chefs from Thailand and had them trained to present their food beautifully to suit the European market, while retaining the authenticity of Thai food. Haim refused to fuse Thai food with any other cuisine. By improving the presentation of the food and introducing authentic Thai dishes which are competitively priced, Haim has created a successful business formula where Thai Square is serving one million customers each year through all their restaurants. There are now sixteen operating restaurants with two more opening soon. Staff turnover is low as the group offer good training and look after the welfare of their staff. The St Albans branch of Thai Square was opened in December 2007. It was recently voted the St.Albans retailer of the year 2008 – Cafes & Restaurants Winner, despite only having opened seven months before, and competing with many other local restaurants. The restaurant is located in a former Tudor tavern, a listed building, which dates back more than 600 years. It has been sympathetically restored and has a host of striking architectural features, many of which were discovered during renovation. Local conservation authorities have praised the sensitive nature of the restoration.