About Us

About Chai-Yo Café


Chai-Yo Café is owned by Bu-nga Krataitong and Nuttavut Rodsienglum.


The casual dining style of Chai-Yo Café grew out of our love for fresh and innovative Asian cuisine and our desire to make it available to everyone.


Tasty, healthy, fast food at affordable prices that our customers love to eat – this is what we want to share with you. And we cater to everyone, whether you like it spicy or not so hot!


We developed a love of food thanks to our mothers’ cooking. Nuttavut’s mother in particular was a fantastic cook and she inspires everything we do at Chai-Yo. Our recipes are all about using the knowledge we have from cooking with our families in Thailand and around the world, taking the best local ingredients and experimenting and adapting to the local palate.

A string of popular Asian fusion restaurants stand behind Chai-Yo’s success. We started out as a husband and wife team with one café and now have 70 staff (and two sons) in our Simply Asia Food Group family. The other restaurants and cafés in our group include: Bamboo Garden and The Lemongrass in Blenheim; Chai-Yo Restaurant and The Lemongrass in Richmond; and SAMKO Café and Miracle Restaurant in Nelson.



Family is all important to us. We have based our café on that same principle – we want our customers to feel welcome and at home when they visit us. Likewise, our staff are all a part of our wider family. With tasty food adapted for the Kiwi palate, reasonable prices, and a welcoming atmosphere, we want all Kiwis to experience great Asian fusion food.

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