HANOVER — It would be easy to miss Tuk Tuk Thai Cuisine, if not for the turquoise sign alerting passersby to the South Main Street restaurant.
Accessed through a steep staircase on a side street off the main drag, Tuk Tuk’s chefs have been serving fragrant bowls of Tom Yum soup and drunken noodles since owner Pannipa Pace opened the restaurant in 2015.
Over a decade later, Pace is preparing to move the restaurant to above-ground digs. Renovations are currently underway at the storefront opposite the Hanover Park plaza, in the building on 44 South Main St.
“I’m excited,” Pace, 43, said in a Wednesday interview at Tuk Tuk. “We don’t have to be underground anymore.”
The decision to move was prompted by property owner Jon Livadas’ plans to tear down the 100 year-old building to develop a 35-unit residential property.
The demolition means that Tuk Tuk and Walt & Ernie’s Barbershop, which is located in the annex at the back of the building, would need to relocate.
The front of the building, which houses Dirt Cowboy, Murphy’s on the Green, and Simon Pearce, will remain intact.
Walt & Ernie’s moved to a new space at 42 South Main St., in the building adjacent to the new Tuk Tuk location, in early January.
“We were next to each other before, and we’ll be next to each other again. Who would have guessed,” the barbershop’s owner Carol Eastman said.
At the moment, Livadas doesn’t have “a firm start date,” for the demolition, he said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Pace’s husband Ken Pace has been helping out with renovations at the new restaurant with tentative plans to open in early April.
He’s installed epoxy floors, and painted the space turquoise with accents of white and gold to give it an “ocean effect,” he said.
The West Lebanon couple also plan to add outdoor seating and a custom-made tent to the restaurant’s patio in the warmer months.
“It’s tucked right in and you’re out of the wind,” Ken Pace said.
The space, which seats about 130 inside and outside, already has a kitchen, but the couple are installing new equipment.
So far, the renovation, including purchasing new appliances, has cost about $150,000, and there’s still another $25,000 or so to put into the project, Ken Pace said.
The new location has known many tenants. For eight years, it was the cafe and restaurant Market Table, which closed in the fall of 2020. Then came impasto, an Italian eatery and sister restaurant to Murphy’s, which owner Nigel Leeming converted into an events space called Venue in early 2023.
He opted to close Venue after Pannipa Pace reached out to him about moving the restaurant there.
“The new Tuk Tuk is going to be better than the old Tuk Tuk, based on location,” Leeming said. “It’s much more amenable to the public in that it’s on the ground floor.”
Even though the new space comes with some advantages — additional seating and sunlight, to name a few — it’s also a little farther away from Dartmouth College’s campus than Tuk Tuk’s current location.
Even now, “We deliver all day long right across the street to Collis,” Ken Pace said of the college’s student center.
“I’m just hoping (students) will walk those extra hundred yards,” he said.
Dartmouth senior Lucie Morton reckons that Tuk Tuk has enough “loyal customers” to be successful in the new location, she said in an interview at the restaurant.
She and her friends have been coming to Tuk Tuk for years. On Wednesday evening, they went for the spicy noodles with tofu, a bowl of Tom Yum soup — a hot and sour broth flavored with lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, and other aromatics — and papaya salad.
Other items on the menu include Pad Ka Pao, a dish of ground chilis, basil leaves, green beans and bell peppers served with rice and a choice of protein; Pad Kee Mao, flat rice noodles stir-fried with egg, peppers, onions, green beans and Thai basil; and a selection of curries.
Most entrees go for about $18 to $20.
Pannipa Pace, who moved to the U.S. from central Thailand in 2005, hopes the new location will be more inviting to older people who were “scared to come down here,” she said.
Almost 11 years after she opened Tuk Tuk, she still works at the restaurant every day. In the mornings, she and her mother make a run to area grocery stores to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables.
About four years ago, Pace opened a second Tuk Tuk in the former Dunkin’ on West Lebanon’s Main Street, where her mother is the head chef.
When she learned that the original Tuk Tuk would have to relocate she feared that she wouldn’t find another location in town, and that the West Lebanon spot might become her sole restaurant.
Moving into a new location feels like a gift.
“We never thought we were going to get that place,” she said.