Ryan Warner/CPR News
Holly Arnold Kinney s copy of Lily’s Cookbook,” a collection of the restaurant’s most popular recipes. The book had a run-in with Kinney s dog.
Chada Thai is widely recognized as the first Thai restaurant in the United States. It opened in Denver in the early 1960s despite the city’s longtime cowtown image. The restaurant’s late founder, Lily Chittivej, moved to town from Thailand after visiting her husband here in 1960. He was a doctor.
“I want my children to have a good education in a civilized country,” she wrote in “Lily’s Cookbook,” a collection of the restaurant’s most popular recipes. “There is no room for all smart students in Thailand . Here the children have a chance.”