Address and Contact Information
Address: 519 Outlet Center Dr, Smithfield, NC 27577
Phone: (919) 300-1351
Menu Photos
Related Web Results
Roost Thai Restaurant – CLOSED, 519 Outlet Center Dr, Smithfield …
Roost Thai Restaurant | Restaurants – Franki
Directions to Roost Thai Restaurant – MapQuest
Reviews
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5 Stars for the Food!
The food was amazing! Delicious, flavorful, cooked perfectly, great portion size, attractively plated… just great! We talked with the owner (a compassionate and genuine young woman who once lived in Thailand) and learned that they make all their sauces and curries from scratch – very rare around here so I was both pleased and excited! My friend had the Pineapple Fried Rice and I had Drunken Noodles. Both were fantastic!
5 Stars for Decor/Atmosphere!
Very fun colors, textures, vibe!
Where we fall short is service… the heart of any business. You can have great food but if you don’t have great service, you won’t last long. Our sweet little server was VERY nice – she tried hard, was sincere and honest and had a heart of gold. Management needs to do a better job training though – especially with an ethnic restaurant in a rural area, it’s imperative that the staff knows what they’re serving…. the name, primary ingredients, cultural background, etc. In this case she had to pretty much go ask the owners for the answer anytime we had a question. To be fair, she was new on the floor….but it sounds like she worked in the kitchen for the two months prior (Roost has only been open for 3 months from what I understand).
Disappointments = we looked up the menu online with the hopes of coming for Thai food…. it appeared that there was a lunch menu and a robust offering in general. Unfortunately when we arrived we found out that they have changed the menu and only offer a handful of the delectable Thai dishes that were advertised online. They DO still have 2 scratch-curries available (Red & Massaman).
They have ADDED what appears to be a Japanese influence… buns and bowls and ramen … when we asked the server about this, she didn’t know those were not Thai. The owner said they are going for a more “fusion” menu now. They’ve had to scale back to the most popular dishes because they were prepping all the sauces and ingredients for the above-mentioned “robust” menu and having it go to waste. Makes sense but I hope that when they become the most popular joint in town (the food IS THAT good!), that they will reintroduce some of the lost dishes.
Okay, so what we DIDN’T look at when we were online was the hours of operation. Turns out that they close from 2:30 – 5pm! We arrived at 2:11. We were both very excited about eating there and were happy that they were able to seat us BUT turns out that at 2:30, they REALLY want to close up. We wanted to try their mango sticky rice for dessert and a man came out – he seemed kind of angry – and I THOUGHT he said that the cook was not back there so they couldn’t cook it…. but somehow he said they COULD make the fried rice that my friend wanted to bring back to her husband. I asked our server what needed to be cooked on the mango sticky rice and she said they were just in a hurry [to close] … or something like that…. the way that all went down seemed uncomfortable and rude. I am usually pretty optimistic and forgiving but the way we were pretty much pushed out was very disappointing.
The food was phenomenal … who knows what was going on with that man… and the sweet server will continue to improve… so we WILL go back! Just thought I’d share some honest feedback in the hopes that it inspires more thorough staff training and compassion for guests who arrive close to closing time. (We were 20 minutes from closing time, but when closing time came, they were SERIOUS about it! Ha!)