Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1184232
9 8 | M A C O N M A G A Z I N E . C O M J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 9 "I S IT MY CHARM? It must be my charm!" Saranya Kusawadee says in response to being asked the secret to her restaurant Tokyo Alley's steady climb to success over the past 27 years. She then throws her head back and lets out an exuberant laugh, one that any of her regular customers would immediately recognize. "People say I make it look easy, and they ask me for advice," she says, then shrugs. "But I don't have any. It runs itself !" Maybe, but Saranya's not giving herself enough credit here. e restaurant, which managed to bypass the usual struggles and growing pains of an independently owned business, is thriving and beloved because she's invested nearly half her life into making it a warm, friendly, comfortable- yet-chic destination for one of the most satisfying dining experiences in downtown Macon. In 1985, Saranya left her hometown of Bangkok, ailand, to attend Georgia's Piedmont College, where she majored in Business Administration. She barely knew English at the time, and felt some initial culture shock, but her father, a Presbyterian preacher, encouraged her to stay and learn the language before making the decision to transfer somewhere else. She did learn English, but never left Georgia. "I don't like change; I like security," she says. "I like to stay and put down roots." We can thank Saranya's college roommate, Jackie Collins, for her becoming grounded in Middle Georgia. Collins, from Warner Robins, encouraged Saranya to move to the midstate after graduation. She did, and took a job at Yamato on Riverside Drive, with burgeoning aspirations to open a restaurant of her own. Her other option was to move back to ailand and become a missionary, which didn't thrill her. "I was having too much fun here," she says, smiling. Collins later became a police officer whose beat included downtown Macon, and she's the one who alerted Saranya to the Mulberry Street Lane storefront vacancy – or, as Saranya puts it: "She said, 'Hey, there's a little dark place in a little dark alley down Saranya makes it look easy Tokyo Alley was cool downtown dining before downtown was cool BY TRACI BURNS PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT ODOM & JAVE BJORKMAN