Why Phuket

One of our customers had told me jokingly “I know how to say ‘Phone’ and I know how to say ‘Bucket”. So I know how to say ‘Phuket’.  (OOPS!!)

I have heard so many versions of calling “Phuket”. For example, Fooh-Kay, Fooh-Ket.  The most popular one probably is the one that combines “Phone and Bucket” together. 

It is actually pronounced “Pooh-Get“

 I know that a lot of you already knew how to say “Phuket” correctly, but you still love to intentionally say it differently with your friends, right?!?

Well, however you say it, as long as you come and eat here, we’re happy.

In fact, we have quite a story behind “Phuket” name. Back in 2005, when we first came up with the idea of having a Thai restaurant. We try to find a good name that can represent Thai food or Thai culture for the restaurant. We had come up with a few names, like Sukothai (the ancient capital of Thailand), Baan Thai (Baan means house in thai), and of course Phuket.

At first, we decided to go with “Phuket”. We told the landlord about the name of restaurant and he disagreed with the name. His reason is “A lot of folks down here would think that it’s obscene and it has a bad ring to it.”

Well, believe it or not, we almost changed the name to something else because we felt like if we set out a wrong foot, we would not get it back to the right track. After a long and serious consideration, we decided to keep “Phuket”  name alive. Our reason is that it is the name of the Phuket Island in Thailand. And back in 2004, Phuket Island had been hit with the Tsunami that brought  devastation to the island. A lot of news coverage were all over in CNN, Fox News, and all of the news agency.

We thought that people would remember “Phuket” and think about Thailand.  It turned out that no one can remember anything about Phuket or Thailand by the name “Phuket” at all.

They thought that we play with the word!

We have actually have a lot of stories, well, I’d say, a lot of hassles with the name “Phuket” in the first few years that we opened.  I can write about it in another blog!!  

Not only that, we also have the romantic side of the story about “Phuket” name too.  Phuket is actually the honeymoon place for Mr and Mrs. Phuket when we married in 2000.  We name the restaurant “Phuket” purposefully. So we can live and work in the honeymoon every day!

Love just told us to name our restaurant “Phuket”. Isn’t that romantic?!?

Share your thoughts about Phuket name. I love to hear from you.

Deliciously Yours,
Mr.Phuket