OUR STORY

The history of the highly successful and well-loved pair of restaurants, Siam Marina  and ASPARAGUS, can only be appreciated when understood in the context of the individuals who created and oversee these venues.

Tammy and Sam each arrived in Chicago at different times from Vietnam in their early teens. Sam came with his mother and siblings in 1979. Tammy arrived in Chicago by herself in 1985, a refugee sponsored by Red Cross. She worked hard to finish her degree in Electrical Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology while also working full time at the Star of Siam in the River North district of Chicago to support herself and her family back in Vietnam. After graduating, Tammy took a job at Sony where she met Sam, who was managing the department in which she worked. Sam also earned a degree in Electrical Engineering, acquired a few years earlier from University of Illinois Chicago.  

Tammy soon discovered she was too confined in the corporate world at Sony. Her creativity and passion insisted that she find a more satisfying outlet. Just about that time, a former co-worker at Star of Siam contacted her. He had opened a little Thai restaurant in a strip mall in Calumet City. He wanted to go back to Thailand and wondered if she’d like to purchase the restaurant so he could go home. They struck up a deal where she could learn the menu, wait on tables, and slowly earn the money to purchase the restaurant while working for him. In 1995, just a short year later, she earned enough money to purchase the restaurant, and, more importantly, her innate talents as a chef blossomed, allowing her to enhance and make her own unique twists on the recipes she inherited. The restaurant’s popularity was also boosted by Tammy’s considerable artistic gifts which transformed the linoleum-topped take-out storefront into a lovely, intimate, space where customers fell in love with the chef, the food and the surroundings, and kept coming back until the doors were closed in 2009.  

By the time 1998 came around, Tammy and Sam had been dating for some time. They became engaged and soon thereafter, opened Siam Marina II in River Oaks Mall. It too became a local favorite, developing a loyal and growing customer base who keep coming back year after year for the flavorsome and attractive menu in the lovely, welcoming environment.

In 2002 the couple became a family with the birth of their son Saffion, who is now easily recognized at both his family's restaurants, working as a bartender whenever he's on break from his college studies.

Siam II went dark in 2013 when the mall advised that the building would be torn down because the 8-story, mostly vacant office structure was no longer economically viable.

In 2014, Tammy and Sam re-opened Siam Marina in its new home at 16846 Oak Park Avenue, Tinley Park, Illinois. This signature site has already garnered rave reviews for its fresh, sophisticated, contemporarily elegant environment and its ever- popular menu.  

Family values of loyalty, dedication, commitment to serve you to the best of their ability, and taking pride in creating a memorable, quality product are all hallmarks of Tammy and Sam’s history as restaurateurs.