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photo by Shane Wynn
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Charlie Somtrakool has four siblings whose names begin with “c.” Couple that with the fact that his favorite herb is cilantro, and you have the inspiration for the name and c-focused logo of his downtown restaurant, Cilantro. “When people think of cilantro, they think of Mexican dishes, but it’s dominant in Thai food also,” he says.
Somtrakool came to the U.S. from Thailand in 2001 to study chemical engineering at the University of Dayton. Working at a restaurant in college, he discovered that his true passion lay in hospitality and customer service. After graduating, he decided to open a restaurant of his own, but did not want to compete with the one that had given him his tutelage. On a trip to Chicago, a friend who was in graduate school at The University of Akron mentioned that Akron lacked a good Thai restaurant, so Somtrakool investigated possible properties here.
“ It was love at first sight,” he says of the Main Street space Cilantro occupies. “I couldn’t believe it’d been sitting empty for this long.” Somtrakool set about creating a bright, elegant space accented with his lucky color, orange, while his mother created dishes from their homeland. When she had to return to Thailand for her health, Somtrakool’s girlfriend—now wife—took over the kitchen. “She grew up cooking with her grandmothers,” he says.
Some of Somtrakool’s employees have been with him since the beginning, seven years ago, and he feels a responsibility to them. “We are in this boat together,” he says, “with me as the captain.”
