Brisbane restaurant Nice Thai to shut down, new French bistro to open

Customers have rushed to the site of a Queensland restaurant after learning that it is closing down to taste its popular food one last time.

Brisbane eatery Nice Thai by Kid Curry, located in a trendy dining precinct in Fortitude Valley, is shutting up shop in two weeks. It was named in the top 100 restaurants across the state and its closure has come as a shock to some.

However, the owners say this is actually a “super exciting” opportunity for them and their overall business because although the Thai hospitality joint is closing, a new French bistro will take over in its stead called Mini.

A pair of brothers, Cameron and Jordan Votan, 40 and 36 respectively, co-own three much-loved restaurants on East Street situated side-by-side.

They have plans to open a fourth restaurant along the same strip, and so as a kind of precursor, will give staff and customers a test-run of the French cuisine at the site previously belonging to Nice Thai.

“We’ve made the hard decision to shut down Nice Thai in aid of kicking off a bistro,” Cameron Votan told news.com.au.

“The idea of it is to give people a preview of what’s coming, but also to build the team.

“It’s sad, it’s earlier than we thought (but) it’s also super exciting,” he added.

All staff have been retained with the exception of one person, who chose to leave as they wanted to continue cooking Thai food.

Mr Votan said former Nice Thai staff will be used for the new French restaurant, or moved into the other two pre-existing venues.

He said he ensured “everyone has a soft landing”.

The Votan brothers have been in hospitality for the past nine years, with their business starting with the launch of their flagship restaurant Happy Boy, which serves modern Chinese food.

“The real star of the show is Happy Boy,” Mr Votan explained.

In fact, Happy Boy’s success was so great that he claimed it actually impacted on Nice Thai.

“I do think Nice Thai did suffer a little bit being in the shadows of a large Asian restaurant,” he said.

This might have especially been the case as their string of restaurants are located next to each other

“There is a tendency to think of neighbours as competition, but if there’s enough it becomes in everyone’s benefit,” he added.

This might have not always been the case.

Off the back of the success of Happy Boy, the Votan brothers snapped up lease for a venue right next door several years ago to open a second restaurant.

This one, called Snack Man, focused on small Asian dishes and also supplied European wine.

However, Mr Votan said, “given it was all these handmade intricate things, it didn’t work well in lockdown, it couldn’t do takeaway very well.”

As a result, they launched Kid Curry, a Thai enterprise, to cater to their lockdown customer base.

“It was a takeaway only concept,” Mr Votan said. “It was a great success.”

When the lockdown finished, the business owners nabbed a third venue right next door to their previous two.

Snack Man resumed but the third venue was then named Nice Thai by Kid Curry.

With the closure of Nice Thai, Mini will now take over the venue’s mantle.

However, the hospitality bosses have plans to secure a fourth venue on the strip to launch a permanent French restaurant Petite, which will be a French wine bar and bistro.

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