When Terry (the OZZY guy) & Sopa (the shy THAI) met in 2013 Terry was driving semi trailer trucks around Melbourne and Sopa was making the Som Tum dishes for the customers at a Thai restaurant in Abbotsford. After a lot of first time experiences through cultural learning and social interacting, the most significant first time experience for both Terry & Sopa was on
March 30 2014, when Terry's mum, Civil Celebrant Bev Knowles, announced them as husband & wife in front of around 80 guests, that included a strong attendance from the Thai community, in the rotunda at the picturesque Civic Gardens in the Victorian country town of Warragul, followed by the reception that booked out the dining room at Leggies Hotel in Moe...
of theirs that one day they would open up a restaurant together. Although Terry had never really experienced Sopa's restaurant cooking skills, there was no shortage of people telling him how good she can cook. What started off as a random topic of conversation on the odd occassion, turned into the main topic of nearly every conversation in the coming months ahead. So, when the opportunity & timing came together, Sopa asked Terry to look around for a restaurant. The excited reply was "OF COURSE", and was quickly followed by the naive reply of "HOW HARD CAN IT BE"!!!
Around 6 months of looking, and the learning that will still continue for a long time to come, while Terry was at the St Kilda City Football Club ( the Peanut Farm ) waiting for his son, Dylan to run onto the ground with the rest of the Collingwood Knights football team to play the Grand Final, an advertisement for an Indian Restaurant with a 1 bedroom apartment in St Kilda caught his attention & a time was arranged to look at it after Dylan's football game...
the commitment to take on the obvious, & the oblivious challenges together and, after a 2 week closure where some of Terry's & Sopa's family, and others, did an amazing job of renovating, what was that Indian restaurant with a 1 bedroom apartment in St Kilda, at Midday on November 25, 2016 the doors opened for the very first day of trading as OZZYTHAI Cafe Bar
Restaurant, with the description 'Enjoy the AUTHENTIC flavours of TRADITIONAL Thai food by Sopa' and their objective being 'OUR aim is for YOU to ENJOY our FOOD & SERVICE so much that YOUR aim will be to ENJOY it AGAIN... & AGAIN'...
Oh, by the way, the Collingwood Knights won the Grand Final too :)
