The enigmatic postings on Thairriffic’s website don’t help much to explain why Chef Kyla is no longer on staff at the restaurant near the Cedar Springs strip. The messages began appearing earlier this week and today it reads:
For our loyal customers, Chef Kyla (myself) and Family (Original owners that started and built Thairrific 10 years ago) would like to thank you for coming to Thairrific.
However, due to changes internally … My Family, Wonderful Wait Staff, and my loyal Cooks will no longer be present at Cedars Springs.
So what the heck is going on at the restaurant? Owner Daniel Sikora and Chef Kyla Phomsavanh both have their sides of the story. Throughout this week, I spoke with both parties and let’s just say they’re both unhappy with each other and willing to talk at length about it. I’ll try to keep it to the basics.
“It’s been a situation that’s unfathomable,” Sikora said.
In a strange series of events, Sikora discussed how Phomsavanh seemed to be plotting a sort of restaurant mutiny leaving Sikora as a silent partner. But red flags had been waving around the chef for a while now, according to Sikora. Instead of taking the chef’s buyout option, Sikora let him go earlier this month.
“One night he summoned me to talk about the restaurant and he started going on about how he’s decided the kitchen and the dining room were running the way he wants it and that effective immediately he would be taking over the business office. He threatened to leave. Initially, I did think about letting him buy me out, but after talking with my attorney, I realized things weren’t running the way I wanted and I was not going to do things in any unethical fashion. I went to him on May 2 and fired him,” Sikora said.
Phomsavanh said he was trying to save the restaurant from losing money and that due to Sikora’s lack of restaurant experience and the hiring of an accountant, Thairriffic totals weren’t reflected in the restaurant.
“My role was to execute and run the business,” Phomsavanh wrote in an email. “Daniel Sikora appointed his personal friend to be the accountant for Thairrific. Ask any successful restaurant owner, if they have an accountant that is working full time in the office? They will tell you ‘No.’ We have a POS system that keeps track of everything and we already use ADP for our payroll service.”
The chef later said that if he took on those duties, it would only add a minimal amount of time to his work week.
Allegations by both parties dig far deeper into hints of unethical and even illegal practices, but ultimately, the situation looks to be about Thairriffic’s identity. Sikora’s company Crucial Pickles, LLC had taken over the restaurant, while Phomsavanh owns the website. But the Thairrific brand may simply be no more. Sikora is considering a name change to disassociate from Phomsavanh altogether.
“I am part of this community and want to be. We’ve been restaffing and we’re waiting for our liquor license, but I’ve been pleased with what’s coming out of the kitchen now,” Sikora said. “At this point, I’m maybe 75 percent leaning toward changing the name just to have a new brand.”
According to Phomsavanh, Thairriffic is already dead.
“Honestly, I can say that I couldn’t have gotten there without Daniel and it made me sad to go out this way but there is no point anymore. The restaurant is done for. It’s been dead,” Phomsavanh said.
Never understood what all the excitement was about with this place. We tried it soon after it opened on C.S. and thought it was pretty mediocre. I keep hoping something worthwhile will land in that space.
I liked Thairrific and thought their food was excellent, well priced and portioned. The BYOB gave it a nice family feel and I liked their staff. I think the name DRAMA Room is taken but we’ll see what happens next.
I was a customer of Thai-rrific cuisine when it was located at its previous location. I not only came there for the delicious Thai food but for the wonderful company. Kyla and his staff made his customers feel like we were at home and everyone was family. It was a comfortable place to be. However, I never had the opportunity to try out the “new” Thai-rrific after I moved away from Dallas. I can honestly say, I have no interest in trying it now. It is sad to see all the hard work Kyla has dedicated to the restaurant for the past 10 years has went down the drain after new ownership. It is unfortunate for Sikora to lose such a wonderful chef and to no longer be a part of Thai-rrific.
Riveting story. I heard the salad lady at Luby’s got laid off too.
Some things seem unclear in the story. Thairrific is absolutely still open. And also Kyla is not a Chef. He is not a professional. He was not trained. He is a cook. He is a good cook. I liked his food, but it was inconsistent. Thairrific stumbled for a couple days when Sikora started consulting with the new actual Chef (with loads of experience and training), but I ate at the old place regularly and now at the new place. The food since his departure is better than ever. And Kyla changed the website day after day, posting lie after lie. But I personally know the servers and the cooks. Some left, but some stayed. The entire staff did not depart as Kyla states on his website. His postings have been immature, inappropriate, unprofessional and false.
For Danny Sikora’s business skills to be questioned by Phomsavanh is a complete joke. Especially when his own are questionable at best. The fact/record shows he closed his own family business in 2010 while owing an entire years rent to his landlord and years of currently unpaid property taxes to the County. Phomsavanh’s debts owed personally on another failed business were paid by Sikora with an agreement that he would cook and manage the kitchen in the new restaurant. I have known Danny and his family for decades and would never doubt his personal or professional integrity. I know for a fact Danny Sikora and his late family (parents Dr. David Sikora, Ann Loeb Sikora and brother Sam Loeb Sikora) have been upstanding members of the general Dallas community, the Dallas Jewish Community and the Dallas GLBT community for decades. Their volunteerism and financial support of many needs are legendary. The Dallas Jewish Historical Society even named their Humanitarian Award in memory of Ann Loeb Sikora. They have supported Dallas AIDS LifeWalk, (Danny worked for years to bring singer, Cousin Lisa Loeb to headline that event over and over), Congregation Beth El Binah, Resource Center of Dallas, No Tie Dinner and Black Tie Dinner among hundreds of other organizations. Danny has served in the Boards of various organizations and was just re-elected to the Board of the largest Condo HOA in the southwest. He would be the first one to tell you he is not perfect, makes mistakes and learns lessons. It appears Mr. Phomsavanh made these false and defaming comments simply as a hostile impulse to hurt the business and Danny.
This Facebook community was created to support the Phomsavanh family and Chef Kyla after investor and co-partner Daniel Sickora stole ownership of “Thai-rrific.”
https://www.facebook.com/ThairrificOr…
Please like and express support for the original owners of Thai-rrific!
Christina, If you and Phomsavanh supporters actually knew that the family closed their business in 2010 with lots of debt in their wake and that Sikora paid much of thet debt off, you would look less foolish right now. The misinformation you are operating under will become even more and more apparent as the days and weeks pass. Kyla seems very sweet…until you work for him.
People, people, people…..are you so blind and ignorant to speak without knowing the facts? Yes, facts. Cut the drama queen bs and go do some research before you post slanderous misinformation. Look it up, truth that the business was sold off years ago. Truth that Kyla was in dafault on rent and had debts that he could never pay off. Enter a new buyer. Hello people – that’s called salvaging a sunken ship. When you purchase a business as an investor, all intellectual property is included = recipes. It appears as if the new owners are business minded people and have made good solid business decisions. Do I have any connection to this place, nope, never even eaten there. Your comments and this article made me so upset I felt the urge to invest 10 min of my life.
I’ve been abreast of this situation since the beginning. What started off as a very good relationship turned sour after Kyla demonstrated complete lack of business acumen. With the initial roles delineated between the two according to their comparative advantages, Kyla began making unreasonable demands.
Thairrific is a developing business. Most developing businesses, especially restaurants run in the red for the first couple of years. After the company was not producing a profit, Kyla demanded he be paid 8.25% of gross sales (getting paid before any other employee). What Kyla has failed to understand is that the start up costs of the business absorb a great deal of capital, which must be paid off or supported via debt.
In another instance Kyla says that his recipes are copied. Well, this is from the US Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html) Recipes cannot be copyrighted. Sorry.
At this point Kyla has trained the chefs at Thairrific. Thairrific can use whatever recipes they want. And from what I understand Kyla is going on to other concepts.
So if you liked Thairrific before, you’ll continue to like it. If you want to support Kyla in his new ventures, please do. I just would never enter into business with Kyla. I would never accept his word. I would never accept his signature on a contract….that said, I would eat at his restaurant, because I want good food. I don’t really care if the person cooking it is reputed to not be trustworthy in business.
Well kids, the Phomsavanh family closed their business in 2010. Cedar Springs location was Kyla cooking for Danny Sikora. Back when I was a customer, Kyla seemed like a super sweet guy. As a boss, he’s awful. He’d vanish for hours, say he was off doing restaurant stuff and grocery runs and he would be out doing work for his dental supply business, or sleeping in his car in the parking lot. Some days he would talk to people. Other days it was like you were not standing in front of him talking to him. He was vocal about not wanting to hire certain minorities,but if you were Asian, you got a thousand chances. He would badmouth gays behind their backs,even referring to Sikora and his Office Manager at “The Pink Tutu Ladies”. He spread gossip, lies, talked about peoples pay rates in public and even told us SIkora had bought a new SUV and was charging it to the business, so that was why it wasn’t yet profitable. All lies. I’ve known the SIkora’s for 16 years and they can be believed.
Thank you everyone for your kind words. As you know, I will always move forward.For anyone that thinks they know the facts, please state your full name, instead of hiding behind your keyboard and telling lies! I’m not here to argue anyone’s opinions, but I will definitely tell you the facts.Contact me at kylap5@gmail.com, we can discuss it further. I will give you the facts, my intellectual Business 101. Please email me with a real address, and stop hiding behind the keyboards.
I’ve eaten at both locations… the Forest location whenever it was open, and also the new location on Cedar Springs… many times. The food and the service is no different. The food is still excellent and the service impecable! I just ate there Wednesday evening. We went with a party of 25+ for a friend’s birthday and we were accomodated professionally and welcomed openly. I’ve also known Danny Sikora for over 10 years now. He has started several businesses that have done really well. Knowing him personally like I do and his ethics, I truly believe he has the best vision for the restaurant as possible, and he has done what he needed to do in order to see that vision proper. Good Luck, Danny and the rest of the staff at Thairiffic! Me and all my friends will definately be back!
I have known Daniel Sikora for years now. I also know how critical doing the right thing is to him. Ethics and morals are key, and because I know him well, I have been involved and have seen firsthand in many instances, the actions, games and behavior he has been forced to endure from Kyla Phomsavanh. Sikora always tries to steer people who are veering off track back in line for their own good. He will give people chances. So for him to be pushed so far that he removed Kyla would have to mean very egregiously bad behavior. One comment from a friend of Kyla’s (which D has removed) referred to Sikora as greedy. That is one adjective that could never be applied to Sikora. He is one of the most generous souls ever to grace this planet. Good gosh, he didn’t have to pay Phomsavanh’s old landlord $23,500+ for Phomsavanh’s old debt of a year of unpaid rent. He could have left the family saddled with that debt. He did it because it was the right thing to do.