The owners of Lao restaurant Snackboxe Bistro in Duluth will open Naga Bistro this fall in Chamblee. Taking over the Wild Ginger Thai Cuisine space on Savoy Drive, Naga Bistro will include a full bar and serve a combination of traditional and fusion Lao, Thai, and Khmer (Cambodian) dishes.
Co-owner and chef Thip Athakhanh has been looking for a space to open Naga Bistro for several months. She and her husband and business partner, Vanh Sengaphone, wanted to be closer to Atlanta with their next restaurant. So when Athakhanh’s brother, the owner of Wild Ginger, called to say he was retiring in July and offered his restaurant space to the couple, they didn’t hesitate.
A naga is a mythical serpent found in Buddhist art and folklore within many Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Thailand, and Athakhanh’s native Laos. The restaurant’s logo features a three-headed serpent for the three countries represented on the menu. But the symbolism behind the name and logo goes deeper than that for the couple.
“My husband and I were both born on a Saturday. There are different Buddha positions for each day a person is born. For people born on Saturday, that position is basically a monk or Buddha, and protecting him is a naga,” said Athakhanh. “We’re taking a leap of faith with Naga Bistro, like we did with Lao food and Snackboxe.”
Cambodia shares its borders with Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. And while the countries also share similar dishes, specific ingredients, preparation techniques, and cooking methods distinguish each country’s cuisines.
“Some of my closest friends are Cambodian, and we’ve always talked about how few Cambodian places there are in Atlanta. This is a restaurant we’ve been thinking about opening for ten years,” Athakhanh said. “Snackboxe is 100 percent Lao food. Naga Bistro will serve the cuisines of Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia under one roof.”
Khmer (kuh-mai) food, Athakhanh said, will be at the heart of Naga Bistro, seen in dishes like prahok ktis (savory minced pork dip) and kathiew (Cambodian beef noodle soup with a pork bone broth), and through fermentation processes and ingredients like kroeung, a lemongrass-based paste made from magrut lime, turmeric, galangal, and garlic used for stir-fries and soups.
Like the waves of Vietnamese refugees who fled genocide and war in the 1970s, tens of thousands of Cambodians also sought refuge in the United States during the mid-1970s and 1980s from genocide by the communist Khmer Rouge regime. More than 150,000 Cambodian people settled in the United States from 1975 to 1990. Today, there are more than 270,000 people of Cambodian descent living in the US, with close to 10,000 people living in Georgia, centered around Gwinnett County.
While Athakhanh was too young to remember fleeing Laos with her family when the communist Pathet Lao movement came to power, prompting a civil war, she does have memories of living in refugee camps before immigrating to the United States. Growing up with very little, Athakhanh said food brought the Lao and Cambodian communities together.
A life-changing trip back to Laos for her honeymoon in 2016 would spark the idea for Snackboxe Bistro, which opened four years later to critical acclaim. Michelin lists Snackboxe Bistro as a recommended restaurant in its Atlanta guide.
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As with Lao and Filipino food in recent years, Cambodian cuisine has found champions in younger generations of chefs, including in Philadelphia, home to celebrated Cambodian restaurant Mawn. Its owner, Phila (pee-la) Lorn, took home a James Beard Award this year for Emerging Chef. Born in Philadelphia and named for the city, Lorn is a first-generation Cambodian-American, after his parents fled Cambodia in 1985.
“I’m excited to share the Cambodian food that I grew up eating in my friend’s house, and share that along with my love for Lao and Thai food with people at this restaurant,” Athakhanh said. “It’s a very different menu that you’re not going to get anywhere else in Atlanta.”
She expects to serve a variety of Cambodian meat and noodle stir-fries incorporating the country’s signature kroeung lemongrass paste.
Other than a few dishes popular in Duluth, like the khao piek sen (chicken tapioca noodle soup), some Lao dishes served at Naga Bistro will not be offered at Snackboxe Bistro, Athakhanh said.
Exclusive dishes to Chamblee will include Naga Bistro’s version of Pad Thai, called Pad Thai-Lao, which marries the sweet and savory flavors of Laos with the tamarind citrus flavors of Thailand. Look for the prahok ktis pork dip served with a medley of fresh vegetables and a grilled steak entree to come accompanied by both prahok dipping sauce and jeow som (Lao sour dipping sauce).
For dessert, Athakhanh is workshopping a lemongrass crème brûlée.
“The chefs at Wild Ginger will come over to us. These are three very experienced Thai chefs with over 20 years of experience,” said Athakhanh, who will lead the kitchen at Naga Bistro. “We will also have a Cambodian chef. He’s young and up-and-coming and will join us later. I will handle the Lao food.”
An indoor-outdoor bar will open onto the patio, serving beer, wine, and cocktails that lean into ingredients like lemongrass. Naga Bistro will feature a drive-through window, something Athakhanh is especially excited about. She even has a friend in tech developing a takeout ordering app for the restaurant.
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Between the COVID-19 pandemic and operating two restaurants, Athakhanh admits she became burned out by the industry. It all came to a head in 2024. Feeling overwhelmed, and with the lease up, she closed the original Snackboxe Bistro in Doraville. Athakhanh also took a step back from the kitchen in Duluth, now in the capable hands of the chefs she had trained there, and returned to the more predictable pace of the corporate world.
The last year allowed Athakhanh to reset her priorities and find joy again in cooking professionally. Albeit this time, she’s not doing most of that cooking alone.
“The way I felt about opening Snackboxe eight years ago is how I feel about Naga today. I’m excited,” Athakhanh said. “Right now, there’s some tension between Cambodia and Thailand, and Laos is having its own issues. So it’s important to me that we keep supporting each other here in Atlanta.”
Naga Bistro, 2201 Savoy Dr., Chamblee. Opening fall 2025
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