The owner of a longstanding restaurant in Murray will be relocating her business to a city-owned landmark, after her offer to buy the property was accepted.
Murray’s redevelopment board voted Tuesday to accept Anny Sooksri’s offer of $120,000 to buy the historic Murray Chapel, at 4889 S. Poplar St.
Sooksri is the owner of the Tea Rose Diner, a Thai restaurant just across the street at 65 E. 5th Ave. The restaurant’s future was uncertain for a time, as the popular Tea Rose Diner outgrew its current, outdated space. Sooksri said she plans to relocate the diner to the chapel over the next year.
Sooksri said Wednesday that after Tuesday’s vote she was feeling “relieved, first of all.” But with the chapel completely gutted, without working plumbing and electricity, for example, “now I have to worry for the new chapter,” she said, laughing. “Because this is going to be a lot,” she said. Sooksri plans to invest about $800,000 in the renovation of the chapel.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Anny Sooksri, owner of the Tea Rose Diner in Murray for the past 18 years, is pictured on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. Sooksri recently had her offer accepted by the city to buy the historic Murray Baptist Chapel across the street from her restaurant, in background, which she plans to remodel and expand.
At Tuesday’s meeting, nine people spoke in support of Sooksri and her business.
A representative from the family that owns Kabob Bros in Midvale and Kabob Stop in South Salt Lake, which made an offer of $275,000 for the chapel, also spoke Tuesday.
Habib Sarfraz, who is an imam at a mosque in West Valley City and said he was born and raised in Utah, said he and his father, Mohammad Sarfraz, had been looking for a new location for a restaurant for years, and were drawn to the chapel because it had originally been a place of worship.
They had wanted to put a coffee and chai shop on the chapel’s main floor, Habib Sarfraz said, along with a restaurant offering Middle Eastern food. Downstairs, they had wanted to open a gift shop featuring clothing and jewelry.
Rosalba Dominguez, who represents Council District 3 in Murray, thanked Sarfraz for commenting and said, “Hopefully soon we can find a place for you in Murray.”
Phil Markham, the community and economic development director for the city of Murray, said Wednesday that the city is in the process of reaching out to the Sarfraz family and helping them find a location in Murray.
Although the offer from the Sarfraz family was $155,000 more than Sooksri’s offer for the Murray Chapel, Markham said last week that the redevelopment board “does not have to sell the property to the highest bidder. Their responsibility is to encourage redevelopment in any of the RDA zones that we have, and so the priority should be to have the type of businesses that will stimulate the most development and be the best fit for a redevelopment area.”
Markham said that for the past 18 years, Tea Rose Diner has been a successful business that has been “the magnet, the draw to get people in this area,” which he said is “horribly blighted.”
“That’s why we feel that it is important that they’re retained in some way, in some building here in this area,” Markham said.
Sooksri said she plans to make the new Tea Rose Diner a full-service restaurant and coffee spot with a small event space on the lower level.
As Sooksri renovates the Murray Chapel and builds out her restaurant, she will be required to maintain the general historic nature of the building’s exterior, Markham said. The city, which hasn’t seen any official plans yet, will have to approve all of Sooksri’s plans, Markham said.
The next step in Sooksri’s purchase of the chapel is for city attorney G.L. Critchfield to negotiate a purchase agreement with her and the Tea Rose Diner.
As Sooksri renovates the Murray Chapel, she said she plans to keep the Tea Rose Diner open and operating. Markham said that the city will likely demolish the diner after Sooksri moves the restaurant to the chapel, because it’s not considered as historic as the surrounding buildings from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Anny Sooksri, owner of the Tea Rose Diner in Murray, in background, recently had her offer accepted by the city to buy the historic Murray Baptist Chapel across the street from her restaurant on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024.
The history of Block One
The Tea Rose Diner and the Murray Chapel are both within a redevelopment area in Murray called Block One, which includes a cluster of historic buildings.
The Murray Chapel was built in the early 1900s and was originally a Baptist church, Markham said. It used to be located on 4800 South, where Murray City Hall is now, he said, but around the early 1980s, Murray City purchased the chapel and gave it to Bill and Susan Wright in lieu of demolishing it, and the Wrights relocated it to its current location at Poplar Street and 5th Avenue.
For a time, the Wright family used the chapel as a wedding venue, and they held ceremonies and receptions inside, Markham said. After the Wrights got older and didn’t want to run the chapel anymore, he said, the city bought it back around 2015 with the intention of one day relocating a business there as part of the redevelopment of Block One.
The Wrights also owned the little building where the Tea Rose Diner is now, the Margaret Cahoon House just to the east of the diner, the Murray Mansion across the street from the diner, and several buildings along the frontage of State Street. The city purchased all of those around 2015, Markham said. The Wrights had leased the diner to Sooksri for her business, and the city continued that lease.
The construction of the new City Hall was a “key part” in the redevelopment of the area, Markham said, and the first piece of the process. Now, the city is focusing on Block One, the area east of City Hall, which is between 4800 South and 5th Avenue, and State Street and Box Elder Street.
Earlier this year, the redevelopment agency approved funds to design a pedestrian-friendly historic plaza and festival area in the midst of these historic buildings, Markham said. “We hope to have the plaza built as the downtown redevelopment occurs sometime next year,” he continued.
For the general redevelopment of Block One, the city is working with a development firm, Rockworth Companies, whose portfolio includes the office and retail plaza Holladay Village Square in Holladay. Markham said the city is working with Rockworth to make local mom-and-pop-type restaurants and shops the “priority” in the area. “That’s really what Tea Rose fits, in my opinion,” he said.
In addition to the Tea Rose Diner, Sooksri also owns and operates Chabaar Beyond Thai in Midvale, Fav Bistro in Holladay, Uncle Jeffi’s in Holladay, and Tea Rose Thai Express in Murray.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Anny Sooksri, owner of the Tea Rose Diner in Murray for the past 18 years, recently had her offer accepted by the city to buy the historic Murray Baptist Chapel across the street from her restaurant, with plans to remodel and expand, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. .
