08/23/2026
Dear Joyful Thai customers, we’d like to clear the air a bit and address a few questions, as well as some of the unwarranted hateful messages people have been posting about us. First off, we want to make it clear that we never wanted to nor had any intention of going away from our current dine-in format, but unfortunately times are changing in the economy, and in this wonderful state of ours, due to the ever-increasing labor costs, excessive small business taxes, increasing cost of goods, inflation, fuel prices, etc., etc. and we are now forced to make these changes in order to continue operating without constantly having to raise our prices. We want everyone to be able to afford to come in periodically and enjoy some of Joy's delicious gourmet Thai and Asian dishes. Secondly, in order to speed up food delivery out of our very small kitchen and to be able to serve you faster and more consistently, we must morph our restaurant first from a dine-in restaurant with bar into a take-out only restaurant (with bottled and canned alcohol beverages still being available, as well as our current non-alcohol beverage selections) and then a final slower modification over the next several months into a fast-casual restaurant to be renamed Joyful Thai Express (which will also continue to provide bottled and canned alcohol beverages, along with many other new non-alcohol options to be added over time in the future). We hope you hang in there with us through these transitions and understand our situation as we try to keep the business profitable enough to stay afloat in these very difficult and trying times. For those who own a small business in this state (especially in a small rural area like Tonasket), you know exactly where we are coming from and fully understand just how difficult it is to make things work these days, especially in the current economy. We'd also like to kindly ask everyone to continue to patronize the many other small businesses in our community as well, when possible, as all small businesses need the support of the community in order to stay in business.
We will also be losing some key employees. Three very talented, hard-working young men will be going off to college in the next couple months, and their expertise and skill will not be easily replaced.
As for the few haters out there, and for those who don’t do this kind of thing for a living, we ask that you please refrain from making negative or rude comments as you may not fully understand the extreme difficulties of running a small business in this state and the ever increasing costs and constant pressures that small business owners feel on a daily basis to try to make things work here. We will block you on Facebook and attempt to remove any unjust hateful remarks. We want to say a big thank you to those who have stepped in on the comments to help squash the negativity and shed light to the truth and reality of small business operations. We love all of our customers, and we love serving our community high-quality unique food at an affordable price and will continue to do so as best and as quickly as we can, but we can only do this with your continued support. Thank you so much for patronizing Joyful Thai in the past and we hope to see all of you many times in the future.
On a side note, once we are fully running as Joyful Thai Express, we will be able to reduce the cost of most prepared items, as we will be much faster and more efficient and our labor costs should decrease enough to be able to continue to make this work. Our new hours starting September 1st will be 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM (no more closing in the middle of the day to give Joy a lunch break unfortunately) when we undergo this first modification to takeout only. If all goes well, we may even add additional days/hours to the operation to serve you even better if business picks up after we become Joyful Thai Express, and if the employees (other than Joy) are able to run the business for the additional hours without her assistance given the less complex business structure change. Thank you all and we hope to see you soon! 😊
