Walk past 4628 Park Boulevard right now and you'll see plywood over the windows and a permit taped to the door. The building has housed Small Bar and Johnston's in succession. Yet the newest name attached to the building belongs to a family that bought it outright rather than leasing it. That same family has been running a tiny order-at-the-window Thai spot 150 feet away since 2011.
That's the story worth paying attention to on Park Boulevard this year: a longtime neighborhood restaurant buying a nearby building and expanding into a larger space.
Small Bar and Johnston's on Park Boulevard
Small Bar held that 1929 storefront for more than a decade, long enough to become a fixture of University Heights nightlife. After it closed, Johnston's moved in and later shut down.
John Pani, who owned Johnston's, didn't leave the neighborhood when his bar closed. He's still running Park & Rec, just a short walk from the building he used to operate.
The Restaurant That Never Needed a Building Like This
Bahn Thai has spent fifteen years proving it doesn't need much. The original location at 4646 Park Boulevard, Suite 3, has no indoor seating. You order at a counter and eat at one of a handful of outdoor tables, or you take it home. That's been the entire model since Paul and Jinda Srimuang opened it in 2011, and it's still one of the busiest dinner-hour stops on the street.
So it's worth sitting with the fact that this is the operator who just bought the building down the block, a compact 1,581-square-foot structure from 1929, and pulled permits to expand it into roughly 3,500 square feet. After a decade and a half of running a restaurant with no indoor seating, Bahn Thai is building the biggest footprint it's ever had, on a corner where Small Bar and Johnston's previously operated.
One detail cuts against expectation. Despite the building's history as a bar, Bahn Thai has said it won't be serving alcohol there. The new space will do more of what the original does well, just at a scale the original storefront was never built for.
| Current location (4646 Park Blvd) | New flagship (4628 Park Blvd) | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened | 2011 | Under construction, opening targeted for later in 2026 |
| Seating | Counter service, no indoor seating | Full-service space, roughly 3,500 sq ft after expansion |
| Building | Leased | Purchased |
| Building age | N/A | 1929, previously 1,581 sq ft |
| Alcohol | No | No |
A Bigger Bet, Twice, in the Same Year
This isn't the only large check the Srimuangs are writing in 2026. Their Hillcrest location at 3766 Fifth Avenue reopened in April after a nearly three-year closure following a 2023 kitchen fire, with the family reinvesting roughly $2 million to rebuild it. That means the same small, family-run Thai brand is finishing one major rebuild and starting one major expansion in the same calendar year, in two neighborhoods it has served since 2011 and 2020.
The Hillcrest rebuild is at 3766 Fifth Avenue; the new flagship is at 4628 Park Boulevard.
The Corner That Already Proved the Model
If you want proof that a large format can work on Park Boulevard, you don't have to guess. Kairoa Brewing Co. opened in January 2019 at the corner of Park and Madison, just up the street from both Bahn Thai addresses, and it was the first actual brewery to set up in University Heights. It occupies 10,500 square feet with a rooftop patio that looks out over the neighborhood's street sign, and seven years later it's still the kind of place where you should show up early on a weekend if you want a table.
Co-owner Shanan Spearing had already run Red House Pizza next door for years before opening Kairoa, which is the same pattern showing up again with Bahn Thai: the businesses willing to take on more square footage on this corridor are the ones that already had a following before they signed anything.
Electric Wines Plans a 30th Street Location
Electric Wines, a wine bar and tasting lounge from Victoria O'Bryan, a former wine director at the three-Michelin-star Addison who's now working toward her Master Sommelier certification, was originally scouted for a Park Boulevard address near the Hillcrest border. The plan has since shifted to 4644 30th Street, in the space that used to be Lovesick Chapel. A liquor license application is in, but there's no confirmed opening date yet.
Bahn Thai purchased a building on Park Boulevard after fifteen years at its original location. Electric Wines is planned for 30th Street, in a smaller space.
What Actually Changes for You This Year
A few concrete things to watch if you're on this stretch of Park Boulevard regularly:
- Bahn Thai's new flagship is still mid-construction with no fixed open date, so don't plan a birthday dinner around it just yet.
- SANDAG broke ground in March 2026 on the University Bikeway, a 2.8-mile separated bike path along University Avenue, which crosses Park Boulevard at the heart of the neighborhood. It's expected to finish in September 2027, so plan on lane and parking shuffles near that intersection for another year. This project had already been delayed once, after earlier construction bids came in over budget and got rejected, so its groundbreaking this spring was a real milestone, not a routine update.
- Trolley Barn Park held its free concerts every Friday in July, continuing a tradition of more than 24 years, unaffected by any of the above.
- Taste of University Heights, run jointly by the UHCDC and the University Heights Arts Association, still happens each fall, with will-call tickets picked up in front of Kairoa. It's a built-in excuse to check on whichever of these spots is actually open by then.
The activity described here includes Bahn Thai's expansion on Park Boulevard, Electric Wines' planned 30th Street location and construction of the University Bikeway. Trolley Barn Park held its Friday concerts in July.
If you're watching your own street corner shift like this and wondering what it means for your home's value or your next move, that's exactly the kind of local read The Gates Team specializes in. What's My Home Worth? Reach out and let's talk about what's actually happening on your block.
