Kopi Culture

The wonderful Kopitiam by Wilai in Phuket's Old Town hails back to the island's past as a melting pot for immigrants from throughout Asia, with a very tasty menu to boot

Despite only being just over a decade old, Kopitiam by Wilai – with its worn, antique wooden furniture, black and white family portraits on the wall, and simple menu of traditional dishes – feels like it's been there for more than a century. That historic air comes from the ethnic Chinese Bumrungwong family that run the restaurant, who can trace their roots in Phuket back some five generations. Day-to-day operations of the business (its Hokkien name means “coffee shop”) are handled by the youngest member, Wiwan Bumrungwong – though with her mother's name Wilai adorning the sign, her father helping to run another restaurant down the street, and her uncle manning the atmospheric traditional Chinese pharmacy next door, it's all very much a family affair.

Wiwan's grandparents originally ran a cafe, or kopi tiam, in Kathu, a small village built by immigrant Chinese workers (this is where Phuket's famous Vegetarian Festival was founded), who toiled in the many tin mines of the area. Coffee shops like theirs were the “Starbucks of the day,” says Wiwan, providing the exhausted labourers with much-needed caffeine and sustenance. Although Wiwan's mother, Wilai, didn't take over the family business – she became an English teacher instead – when she retired in 2002 there was only one thing she wanted to do. She opened a simple kopi tiam on Thalang Road next door to her brother-in-law’s herbal pharmacy called Nguan Choon Tong.

With business going well at the restaurant, in 2008 she opened up another branch just two doors down, and called it Kopitiam by Wilai, styling it after her parent's original cafe in Kathu by filling it with simple tables and chairs, and original coffee recipes, such as the “kopi cham”, a strong black brew that combines both coffee and tea. On the menu was nyonya food, referring to the mixed Malay-Chinese favourites found throughout Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand. When furnishing the place, they called on Wiwan’s uncle, who had a treasure trove of old-style furniture that was just gathering dust, and vintage Phuket photos fading away in drawers. When it finally opened, Kopitiam by Wilai was an immediate success, drawing in a local crowd that reminisced about the past, and curious tourists like me looking for a taste of culture.

Serving local favourites such as Hokkien mee (noodles) and popiah (spring rolls), some 20 percent of customers are from the Old Town area, usually coming in the evening when it’s quieter. However, as Wiwan reveals, younger members of the community – “anyone aged under 30” – rarely eats nyonya food any more, preferring Thai dishes to that of their forebears. She puts it down to the different family set-ups of today. In Thalang Road’s large shophouses, you’d once have found large families living together, with three or four generations sharing the same space. These days though, most Old Town residents aren’t natives (Wiwan estimates that only about 40 percent of people living there are), instead they’re a mix of outside Thais from other provinces and foreigners who have established businesses in shophouses rented from locals, who, though they “will never sell”, explains Wiwan – have moved to other parts of Phuket.

In many ways, by taking over operations of her family-owned business, Wiwan is a rarity. Having graduated from the prestigious Prince of Songkhla University with a marketing degree, she spent some time studying in the United States before working in Bangkok for a large Thai conglomerate that sells everything from leather goods to cosmetics. However, after just four years of life in the big city, she decided to return home to help with the expanding family business (her younger brother and sister live elsewhere, but when they come home they are expected to work, “It’s not a holiday!”).

In hope of guaranteeing success, and according to long-standing local traditions about prosperity and wealth, Kopitiam by Wilai was opened during the Vegetarian Festival back in 2008. While Wiwan doesn’t want to see convenience stores like the ubiquitous 7/11 or even Starbucks open on the street – emphasising that traditional family-owned establishments, or one-off unique venues, should come first, in keeping with the area’s historic character – she admits that change is inevitable. “The island is changing, and Phuket is becoming a big city. It used to be quiet. On Sunday, Thalang Road was dead.” 

On that note, she has mixed feelings about the weekly Sunday Walking Street, which transforms Thalang Road into a vibrant, pedestrian-only zone filled with food stalls, street performers and souvenir shops. While Wiwan says that it’s good it promotes the Old Town, she laments that there isn’t more focus on the distinctive heritage of the area. And what is that exactly I ask her? “It is people from all cultures living together – Chinese, Thai, Muslim and Indian – all in harmony for more than a hundred years.”