Tacoma restaurateurs Yu Nanakornphanom and Buoy Ngov are stripping their menu down to one dish. After years of running two separate Stadium District restaurants, the pair is opening The Holy Birdy at 6820 6th Ave., a cafe built almost entirely around khao man gai, the Thai take on poached chicken and rice, with Thai-inspired pastries sold alongside it by day.
The new spot takes over the space long occupied by Fuzion Cafe, which closed after 12 years in business, according to The News Tribune. Nanakornphanom and Ngov took over Fuzion’s day-to-day operations in February 2026 and announced the cafe’s last day in late July, weeks before the renovation-and-rebrand push toward The Holy Birdy became public. Fuzion had previously operated under Indochine on Pearl, with Hong Ngov running it back in 2014 and Sean Yean later managing it, per the same account.
The move follows the sale of the couple’s other two restaurants. In June 2025, Nanakornphanom and Ngov finalized the sale of Indo Asian Street Eatery and Moshi Ramen Bar, their Stadium District sister establishments, to new owner Kevin Merrell, according to WhatNow. Nanakornphanom had run Indo since 2015 and Moshi since 2018, and offloading both apparently freed up the operational bandwidth to build something narrower and, they hope, sharper.
A Single Dish, Years in the Making
Khao man gai has quietly become the couple’s obsession. Nanakornphanom told The News Tribune that The Holy Birdy will concentrate only on this concept, and that the restaurant has spent recent years testing recipes before committing to the idea. The rice itself is inseparable from the chicken in the cooking process, the pair said, which is why shortcuts are not really an option if the dish is going to taste right…