Surin of Thailand, Home of Tuscaloosa’s Midnight Sushi, Permanently Closes

Surin of Thailand, a long-standing staple of the Tuscaloosa Strip, is permanently closed, the restaurant announced on Facebook Monday morning.

The news comes just six months after their neighbors across University Boulevard, Ruan Thai, also shut their doors for good, leaving no dedicated, standalone Thai restaurants left open in the Druid City.

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Management at the restaurant kept the announcement short and sweet.

"Surin of Thailand: Tuscaloosa is permanently closed," they wrote. "Thank you everyone for your support."

For years, the restaurant at the corner of University Boulevard and Reed Street was known and loved for their Midnight Sushi -- a late-night spectacle that drew hundreds of patrons to the restaurant for low-cost, high-quality sushi on weekend nights.

Like so many other local businesses, though, Surin was irrevocably changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, owners there made the difficult decision to close their dining room to the public, temporarily take sushi off the menu and switch to an exclusively takeout model.

The changes, which were never meant to be permanent, were left in place as the pandemic continued to drag on. Ultimately, the dining room never reopened. The restaurant relied on a takeout-only model for 17 months before announcing its closure Monday morning.

Seven Surin locations remain open in Birmingham, Huntsville, Mountain Brook, Atlanta, and Knoxville, Tennessee.

For announcements about the future of the space, plans for the Ruan Thai building and more breaking restaurant and retail development scoops the minute they're available, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.