Sunny’s Shop rises from the ashes

1. Plate and Cup

We arrive at the back of Sunny’s Shop on Prospect Road and walk into the laneway, a plant oasis with greenery above us and tapping us on the head as we move through.

When we get to Rosemont Hall — the dinner side of Sunny’s Shop — it feels the same as when this reporter frequented it as an unemployed foodie. Before the fire.

Sunny’s Shop co-owner Aaron Ratanatray says his relationship with food began when he was growing up with restaurant-owner parents.

“I was that typical Asian kid that grew up in the back of Chinese takeaway doing homework,” he says.

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve been surrounded by food.”

Aaron recalls memories of happy customers and “that generosity of [his parents] spirit”.

“I remember the joy that they had feeding lots of people all the time and just how it made people feel,” he tells CityMag.

Aaron says a life in the hospo world was his destiny: “There was no real other path for me.”

“It was always something that I knew I wanted to be part of, just in what direction that was going to take, I wasn’t sure as a young kid.”

When the now Sunny’s Shop and Rosemont Hall building became available in 2014, Aaron’s parents purchased it with “no real idea about what we wanted to do at that point”.

“Then we went for a big family holiday to Thailand and I remember sitting outside and enjoying this yummy food and sitting on a plastic stool,” Aaron says.

“That’s where the inspiration came, that we’ve got to bring this back to Adelaide.”

So, in 2016, Sunny’s Shop was born.

From the get-go, Aaron wanted flavours and an atmosphere that “transports [him] back to Thailand”.

“It’s just so raw and real and energetic, and it was just unlike anything I’ve experienced in Australia before,” he says.

“When you’re sitting down the laneway, you probably didn’t feel like you were in Prospect anymore. You felt like you were somewhere else.”

Aaron ran the takeaway casual eatery before opening up the restaurant section in the heritage listed Rosemont Hall next door a year later.

“I just love the concept of having lots of different options” he says.

“I love to go to one place and choosing my own adventure under the one roof and if we could deliver that on a smaller scale, I thought that was really cool.

“To have Thai food [at Sunny’s Shop] and you could come through [Rosemont Hall] and have some Chinese food, I thought that was really interesting.”

Aaron says he never thought his restaurant would become such an institution in Prospect.

“We just put our heart and soul into it and we just try and make people have a really good time… and show our gratitude to everyone that comes through the door,” Aaron says.

“[We wanted] to give people that big friendly smile and make people feel at home… you just give it your best shot and everything else just follows.”

Then came September 16, 2021.

“I was lying in bed. I was asleep. It was four in the morning [and] I got a call from our security company that something had triggered the alarm,” Aaron says.

“So we’re checking the cameras and the cameras aren’t working. I think ‘what’s going on?’ I just live at the back here as well… they’re calling me and I could smell something.

“Instantly, we got up and ran out the back door and could see smoke billowing out of the roof. I’ve run out in my pyjamas, bare feet to the shop and it was just chaos.”

Aaron still doesn’t know what sparked the blaze, which burned the entire building. The source was not determined and it was deemed an accident.

The next few months were “uncharted territory” as the owners tried to bring the business back to life.

“There was no blueprint on what to do,” he says.

“You know, we’re just a small business; we’re not developers and we’ve never been through these things before.

“Every day was a new experience, a new learning curve, a new challenge and every day, we just tried to put one foot in front of the other.”

Aaron grieved. He says he and his family felt like “someone had just died”.

“There was no light at the end of the tunnel at that point. We just tried to persevere as best you could, and deal with situations as they arose,” he says.

Because Rosemont Hall was a heritage façade and there were issues with safety and insurance, the rebuild the project was delayed for “about six months”.

“But thankfully, we all got to the same page by March 2022 and we agreed that we were going to rebuild and we’d replicate what was there originally, but up to 21st century safety measures,” Aaron says.

It took two years for the Prospect house to rise from the ashes.

Sunny’s Shop reopened in December 2023, then Mr Chan’s in April 2024.

“Functionality-wise”, the building has improved greatly, while “still retaining the aesthetics of the old building”.

“It’s much bigger and more functionable, much more comfortable. It’s completely run by solar more or less… we’ve got skylights,” Aaron says.

Food-wise and looks-wise, Sunny’s Shop has mainly stayed the same.

“My gut feeling was always that Rosemont was so good the first time around and if something is good, why change it?” Aaron says.

Among the bells and whistles that come with a modern building, Aaron says the quality time he spent with his family was the greatest silver lining he could’ve taken from the otherwise distressing experience.

“Even though it took so much from us, it actually made us heaps closer,” Aaron says.

“We had time to have dinner together regularly — we never did before because I was always working.

“It just forged this incredible bond and it gave us the strength to persevere — we had a reason to push through because we had each other.

“We’re all so tight now, it’s a really, really good thing.”

This article was first published in print Issue 43 of CityMag, released in June 2024.