Morning Starcafe

Our own restaurant and coffee house occupies the ground floor of Thani Residence, which means the first meal of the day is one flight of stairs or one elevator ride away. The kitchen cooks Thai and local dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, keeps snacks and cold drinks going through the quieter hours, and serves both an indoor room and an outdoor terrace beside the garden.

For guests here on business it removes the daily decision of where to eat before seven in the morning. For families it means dinner can happen without getting back in the car. Either way, it is the part of the residence people mention when they explain why they booked a second time.

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Breakfast, before the road fills up

Breakfast is the busiest hour of the cafe's day, because most of our guests are leaving for somewhere with a fixed start time. The kitchen cooks Thai morning food alongside the plainer things travellers want when it is already warm at seven: rice soup, eggs to order, toast, fresh fruit when it is in season, and coffee served hot or over ice. Guests who are heading out very early can ask the night desk to have something ready, and the kitchen will usually manage it.

Lunch and the long afternoon

Lunch is where the local cooking shows properly. Rice plates, noodle bowls, curries and stir-fries are built from what the kitchen brought back that morning, and heat levels are adjusted for whoever is eating without any discussion needed. Between the two main services the cafe stays open for snacks, cold drinks, iced coffee and something sweet, which is when the terrace beside the garden becomes the most useful room in the building for anybody working through a stack of paperwork.

Dinner with the family at the next table

Evening service is unhurried and openly family-friendly: dishes arrive to share, children move between tables, and nobody minds. Guests who have spent the day driving between appointments across Chon Buri tend to eat downstairs rather than go back out into the traffic, and the kitchen is used to orders arriving in waves as people come in from the road. Kids' meals and child-friendly buffet options can be arranged, and fruit may be available for an additional charge.

Three places to eat, all of them downstairs

The cafe is not a single room but a set of spaces that suit different parts of the day, and guests move between them without thinking about it much after the first morning.

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The indoor room

The main room is modern and plainly furnished, with hard floors, generous table spacing and enough air conditioning to make the middle of the day comfortable. It is quiet enough to hold a conversation across a table without raising your voice, which is why a fair number of guests use it as an informal meeting room during the afternoon.

The garden terrace

Outside, the terrace seating sits beside the garden and catches whatever breeze is moving through Ban Suan. It is the better place to sit in the early morning and after the sun drops, and the outdoor dining area is where guests linger longest over coffee. Shade means it stays usable through most of the day, though the middle hours belong indoors.

Coffee and the counter

The coffee side of the operation runs all day: hot and iced coffee, tea, soft drinks and light snacks, ordered at the counter rather than waited for at a table. Guests coming back from CentralPlaza or the night market with shopping tend to stop here first, which is exactly what the room is for.

And when you would rather go out

We are not precious about guests eating elsewhere, and there is a good deal worth trying nearby. Ninja Night Market fills with food stalls after dark, CentralPlaza Chonburi has a full food hall for anyone who wants air conditioning and choice, and the seafood along Bangsaen Beach is the reason a lot of Thai families drive down at weekends. The desk will tell you which nights the market is busiest and write the destination in Thai for a driver.

What the cafe gives you is the option not to bother: somewhere to eat before the roads wake up, and somewhere to come back to when the day has gone on longer than planned.

Book a stay with the cafe downstairs Local guide