A sign in Wrigleyville’s month-old Cozy Noodles and Rice reads: attention patrons–knives, forks, spoons, and toys are not medicine so please don’t take them after your meal. But owner Suppaluk Meunprasittiveg, or Tee (his nickname as the youngest brother of three, or “tee”), admits he’s not as concerned for the welfare of the silverware as he is about the thousands of small toys on the walls, tables, and shelves. “I started collecting when I was 12,” says the 29-year-old. Now more than 500 Pez dispensers cover the women’s bathroom walls, hundreds of windup toys line the dining room, and a Plexiglas-covered tabletop at the entrance displays dozens of plastic fast-food trinkets. “They’re all either nailed or glued down just in case,” Tee says. “The sign is more for fun.”
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Tee and his 30-year-old brother, Sulak, came to Chicago from Bangkok in the mid-90s–Sulak to study business, Tee film. “My aunt is a big film producer and my grandfather a famous actor,” Tee says. “I was supposed to go back and work with her.” After Sulak got his MBA from Dominican University in 1999, he was uncomfortable leaving his brother alone in the States (their older brother and mother still live in Thailand). So he opened the first Cozy, in Evanston, while Tee continued his studies.
By the time Tee graduated from Columbia College–with a bachelor’s degree in film and video, and a wife, Jureewan, who’d moved from Thailand to be with him–Sulak’s restaurant was thriving. The brothers decided they liked the restaurant business too much to return to Thailand just yet. With Jureewan as a third partner, they leased the Wrigleyville space.
Cozy Noodles and Rice is at 3456 N. Sheffield, 773-327-0100.
