MEXICO — The owner of Thai Smile 2 is renovating the front area of the restaurant, replacing booths with tables and chairs and adding a pool table.

Chaiwat “Charlie” Kloythep, who also owns of Thai Smile & Sushi Restaurant in Farmington, said he hopes to reopen the front area Feb. 20.

Kloythep bought the restaurant last year and opened it Dec. 5, serving customers in the back dining room.

“So far, things are going very well,” Kloythep said. “We have a good crowd in Farmington, and here, in Mexico, people seem to be enjoying it so far. We’re getting a lot of repeat customers every week.”

Kloythep said he will install full bars downstairs and upstairs with 20 different draft beers, and a television and a karaoke machine upstairs.

“This way, if people want to go upstairs and enjoy the full bar and karaoke, they can do that,” he said as he thumbed through a book of karaoke songs. “The karaoke machine we bought has over 5,000 songs in it.”

The back dining room will remain the same, Kloythep said, except for the addition of new draft and bottled beers.

Kloythep said he also tweaked his menus to make it clearer which items are spicy and which are not.

“A lot of people seem to have an idea that all Thai food is spicy,” he said. “That’s not true. I try to explain to them that only certain items are. On the menus, we’ve put little chili peppers next to the items that are spicier.”

The restaurant has an online order service at www.thaismile2.com.

“We’ve been getting a lot of our customers through that,” Kloythep said.

mdaigle@sunjournal.com