Even as cleanup of the fire-ravaged Five Points site continues, Vanly Keov puts the finishing touches on his new restaurant.

The first business to reopen after the Dec. 6/7, 2007 fire, the Royal Thai is back in business, with a view of the site where heavy machinery removed debris from where an explosion blew his tables and chairs out through his windows and into Dunlop Street, just before the multi-million-dollar blaze burst out.

“In the morning, I saw the chairs still on the street,” recalled Keov, who poured his life and soul into building up the first Thai restaurant in the city.

An early-morning call from a family member alerted Keov and his wife Pha, to the news; they turned on the television that early December morning to see all they’d worked for being consumed in flames.

Throughout the winter, he searched for a site.

“I was about to give up. It’s painful. I built up my clientele. My life was dependent on that site. We saw it and everything with it gone. I built up my life in Canada with nothing,” he recalled.

A refugee almost 20 years ago, Keov took on the most-menial jobs – including picking worms after rainstorms, in addition to working shifts at an industrial job. He and his wife were building towards a dream, running their own restaurant. They had tasted and enjoyed success for over a decade, when fire destroyed it.

The journey to reopening was a long one, especially in the cold dark days of winter. What kept him going, however, were kind words from customers urging him to keep trying.

Still, time passed as insurance companies and building owners decided the fate of the multi-property strategic site; his landlord finally told him to get another location.

As spring came and the days brightened, Keov could see he was indeed fortunate.

“Everybody could have been killed if the fire happened on a Friday at 11:05 – my wife, my seven-year-old daughter and our employees. The restaurant would have been full.”

Still the fire consumed hopes and dreams, including plans to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary there.

But perhaps the most touching were words from his seven-year-old daughter. She had put her piggy bank in the restaurant, for luck and to be involved in the family business.

Along with years of work, it too was lost in the fire.

“My daughter cried for a whole week for her piggy bank,” he recalled, adding each time the family would drive by, she’d remember it.

“She’d look at the (fire) site full of emotion and whisper, my piggy bank, I feel sorry for my piggy bank.”

The new restaurant features two smaller private dining areas, as well as some new additions to the menu, including beef skewers, spicy sole and a favourite for kids, golden chicken wings. The restaurant’s established lunch specials remain, he said, as customers are looking forward to their favourite combinations.

“It’s like coming home,” he said, as he reviewed his menu in anticipation of reopening.

“I never in my whole life thought it would happen to me. It really struck me. I came across a lot of difficulties, (but) this is a new start,” he said.

And in the newly renovated restaurant at 33 Bayfield St. is a new piggy bank for his daughter.

“This is a new start. It will not compare to the old one at all.”