"Almost everybody says, 'Oh, I'm glad you opened here,'" Kamol Buaban told KTVQ this spring, a few days after Nisha Thai Kitchen opened at 216 N. Broadway.
Many of the people saying that had eaten Thai food in the same room before. Imperial Thai once held that North Broadway address, and Chaikhana was the most recent tenant before the Buabans moved in. The same thing has happened all over downtown this year. Thai, regional Mexican, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian and Nepalese food, and a seafood boil all arrived in 2026. Nearly every one moved into a dining room Billings already knew by another name.
Six addresses, six earlier names
Here is the new downtown food map, matched to the old one:
- 216 N. Broadway. Imperial Thai, then Chaikhana. Now Nisha Thai Kitchen, open since early April.
- 15 N. 26th St. Don Luis. Now La Morenita, which opened quietly on Jan. 22.
- 119 N. Broadway. Bin 119. Now Curry Bar & Grill, which KTVQ reported as recently opened on June 1.
- 2716 Third Ave. N. Soup and Such. Now Phónomenal Vietnamese Kitchen, open since June.
- 310 N. 29th St. Sarah's Mexican Food. Now La Cocina Filipina.
- The former Wild Ginger space. Now Surf and Sport, a seafood and sports bar that was open by Aug. 1.
Five of the six serve a cuisine downtown either lacked or had only one place for. KTVQ calls Phónomenal Billings' only dedicated Vietnamese restaurant. What's new is what's on the menu. The kitchens are the same ones downtown already had.
Why an existing kitchen made the difference
Putting a restaurant into a room that has never had one is expensive and slow. Taking over a room that already has hoods, plumbing and a dining room is neither. KTVQ's spring coverage said reusing existing restaurant spaces has made it easier for new businesses to move in and get started. When Kaela Chanhthavee and Quito Keutla found the old Sarah's space on North 29th, they described it to the Billings Gazette as "affordable and ready to use." They also said other people wanted it: "There were others looking at it, but we were persistent," Chanhthavee said.
That competition is backed by numbers. The Downtown Billings Alliance counted 15 additions in the Central Business District from January through June 2026: nine new businesses, plus six relocations or expansions from elsewhere in Billings. Mehmet Casey, the economic development director at the Downtown Billings Partnership, put that number in context:
"We see about twenty to thirty new business openings with ten or less closures a year. That has led us to a record ten year low vacancy rate for street level downtown spaces."
Nine brand-new businesses in six months puts downtown roughly in line with that yearly pace, and six more moved in from other parts of town on top of that. Street-level vacancy is at a ten-year low, so a vacant room with a working kitchen gets taken quickly. Casey also told KTVQ that this was the second year in a row with a lot of business activity in the first quarter, a season he called "historically and typically slow."
One lease, two restaurants, and a drink booth
Two of these restaurants share one family and one lease. Chanhthavee and Keutla, a husband-and-wife team, went looking for a commissary kitchen for Phónomenal while they were still renovating the Soup and Such space on Third Avenue North. That search turned up Sarah's.
They wanted to use it alongside their friend Lani Vicente. Vicente is originally from the Philippines and had cooked for Filipino gatherings in Billings for years. Two years earlier she had started a catering business, La Cocina Filipina, while working full time in the kitchen at St. Vincent Regional Hospital. The couple first offered her the space for pop-up dinners. She decided to open full time instead. "You know I'm ready," she told Chanhthavee in the half-built dining room.
The Gazette's preview listed the planned menu as lumpia, kare-kare, pancit, adobo, beef caldereta and halo-halo. As of its September listing with the Downtown Billings Alliance, La Cocina Filipina is open Tuesday through Saturday starting at 11 a.m. and closed Sunday and Monday. That listing and the restaurant's online ordering page give different closing times, so check before you plan a late dinner there.
The family has a third business. The couple's daughter, Victoria Keutla, an MSU Billings student, co-founded Sip 555. She and Serenity Huynh began serving drinks rooted in their Laotian heritage in fall 2025. They did a pop-up at Frae Collective during the 2025 Holiday Stroll and moved into a vendor booth there in June. Their last day was Saturday, Sept. 19. The founders said they decided to pursue separate plans. Frae owner Tiffany Miller-O'Brien told the Gazette she hopes to put another drink shop in the booth.
What each kitchen is cooking now
Nisha Thai Kitchen is owned by 19-year-old Nisha Buaban and run by her father, Kamol. The family moved from Sidney after 15 years in the restaurant business there. The restaurant's website highlights red curry, Padkraprow, Tom Kha and pineapple fried rice. It lists hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday.
La Morenita serves regional Mexican food. The Gazette singled out the quesabirria, chilaquiles, mole and a molcajete. Its website now lists 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, which is an earlier opening than the January coverage reported.
Curry Bar & Grill, owned by Hemant Bhandari, serves Indian and Nepalese food: butter chicken, curries, naan and momo dumplings. It is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., so it covers Sundays, when several of its neighbors are closed.
Phónomenal runs on a different schedule from the others. Its pho broth simmers for at least 24 hours, and one ingredient takes about 90 days to prepare. The kitchen makes one batch a day. "If it's gone, it's gone," Chanhthavee told KTVQ. The rest of the menu includes bánh mì, spring rolls, vermicelli and rice bowls, and Keutla's own blend of Vietnamese coffee. As of July, Phónomenal served lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, plus dinner from 5 to 8 p.m. on Fridays. If you want pho, go early in the lunch window.
Surf and Sport serves seafood boils with shrimp, crab, mussels and lobster, plus wings and bar food, with nearly 40 televisions tuned to sports. In August it stayed open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, which manager Stephen Leary noted is later than usual for Billings. Its website advertises a Monday mussel special and a weekday happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m.
What's still on the way
At least one announced project hasn't opened yet. Pete Lee won the Downtown Billings Alliance's 2024 Battle of the Plans and brings 15 years of local butchering experience. He announced Pete's Meats, a neighborhood butcher shop at 2917 Second Ave. N., and hoped to open in May. We found no report of an opening since, so for now it is still a planned address.
The Sip 555 booth inside Frae Collective, at 116 N. 29th St., is waiting for its next drink vendor. The Alliance's midyear report said more announcements were expected before the end of the year. With street-level vacancy at a ten-year low, the next restaurant downtown will most likely open in a room that has served food before.
At the Brosovich Real Estate Team, we follow which storefronts open and what fills them, because it tells us how a neighborhood is doing. If you live near downtown and are curious how this year's activity on Broadway and North 29th affects your home's value, request a free home valuation and we'll go over it with you.
