In Bangkok, Disused Shophouses Are the City's New Hotspots
Behind weathered wooden doors in Bangkok’s Chinatown, entrepeneurs are transforming their ancestral homes into fashionable restaurants and creative spaces.
In Bangkok, timeworn shophouses peek out between gleaming high-rises. Widely found across Southeast Asia, these buildings have traditionally functioned as both their owners’ places of business and their homes, with stores at the front and living areas at the back. Now, the century-old spaces are being resurrected to house some the city’s coolest haunts, from award-winning restaurants and cocktail bars to avant-garde galleries.
While repurposing industrial spaces is nothing new, Bangkok’s conversions have taken a different tack. Its shophouses retain their age-old atmosphere, with geometric floor tiles, peeling paint and creaking shutters. And often, their transformation is carried out by descendents of the original owners.
Take Potong, a one-Michelin-star restaurant run by Pichaya ‘Pam’ Soontornyanakij, the world’s top ranked female chef in 2025 according to 50 Best. It’s set in a five-storey Sino-Portuguese structure that previously housed four generations of her ancestors and their Chinese herbal pharmacy. According to Pam, shophouses like this were integral to Thailand’s largest and most integrated immigrant community. Today, the space is sleek and low-lit, with a ground-floor bar and chilled rooftop area. Much like the building itself, the menu revives Thai-Chinese culture — Pam’s pad thai is deconstructed, tamarind-infused and draped in noodles depicting the Thai flag.
Potong is a part of Made in Song Wat, a community dedicated to doing up the historic Song Wat neighbourhood of Chinatown. Its founder, Kiattiwat ‘Aui’ Srichanwanpen, revamped the ground floor of his family’s slipper factory as the cerulean-facaded Play Art House gallery, which has rotating exhibitions by emerging local and international names.
Over in nearby Yaowarat district, four siblings have overseen a sensitive restoration of their ancestral home to create Baan Trok Tua Ngork, a cultural and culinary space that juxtaposes old and new in an ornate building. A few streets away, G.O.D., short for Genius on Drugs, has caused a stir in the mixology world, transforming a dilapidated shophouse into an innovative bar resembling a crumbling gothic cathedral, complete with a piano that appears suspended in midair.
Three more shophouses to visit
21 Carpenter, Singapore
‘Day and night, when will we reunite’, reads the inscription in the lift of this boutique hotel. It was born out of a former remittance house, from which Chinese migrants dispatched money and letters back to their loved ones. The architects incorporated excerpts of those letters into the property — for example, into the aluminum facade — which has won awards for its thoughtful design.
Better Than Blouses, George Town, Malaysia
This independent Penang-based label transforms Peranakan (a community descended from Chinese migrants to the Malay Peninsula) patterns and traditional batik into contemporary fashion. Browse founder Kang Pei Shern’s creations at her studio space, set in a pre-war shophouse in Lebuh Melayu.
Kiti Panit, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Kiti Panit serves thick, savoury hang le, a northern Thai pork curry, in a tastefully restored 130-year-old structure that housed the city’s first general store. The fifth-generation descendants of the Chinese immigrants who opened the shop gave their ancestors’ abandoned teak-wood mansion a fresh start, restoring the original woodwork and furniture.
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