Gen X’s Thai Island Vacation Turned Into a New Life Running a Restaurant

In the 18 years since he moved to the island of Koh Samui in Thailand, Martin Selby tells me that he’s only been back home to the UK twice.

It’s a quiet morning, and we’re seated in Foxtrot Bistro, Selby’s restaurant that serves modern European fare with Asian influences. The place hasn’t opened for the day yet, so we have it all to ourselves. A new breakfast menu is on the way, he says, and it’ll probably be out by the time this story runs.

The establishment overlooks Bangrak Bay on Samui’s northern shore, and he wasn’t lying about the view.

Beyond the terrace, the water stretches out to the horizon in shades of blue and green. Not far away, a wooden pier juts out into the bay, where a handful of small fishing boats lie moored. In the evenings, he says, it’s the perfect spot to catch the sunset.

Originally from Grantham, a town about 100 miles north of London, Selby never thought he’d end up building a life for himself in Samui. He started working in kitchens when he was 16, but always dreamed of traveling abroad. When he turned 25 and became a sous chef, he decided it was time.

“I thought, well, if I don’t go and do it now, I might not ever do it, and I’ll just end up working forever and ever,” Selby, now 43, said with a laugh.

With that, he was off on a yearlong trip through Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Samui was one of his earliest stops in Thailand, and as his travels drew to a close, he spontaneously decided to return to the island.

“I had three months left before my return flight, and I was like, I might just chill here now,” he said. “About a month into being chill, I was like, what if I could get a job here?”

He printed out his CV at an internet café, went door to door at local hotels, and soon secured a job as a chef. As his career grew, so did his personal life: He got married and became a father.

“It was all very spur of the moment,” he added.

From chef to restaurant owner

Funnily enough, when Selby first arrived in 2007, Samui didn’t make a good impression on him.

“When I got here, it just seemed a little bit chaotic,” he said. “You get off a bus or a ferry, and you’ve got people sort of touting for your business and things like that.”

But once he adjusted to island life, Samui quickly began to feel like home. Over the years, Selby worked at several restaurants and hotels across the island before eventually striking out on his own.

In addition to Foxtrot, he also co-founded Blind Tiger Kitchen and Cocktails, located just a three-minute drive away, with a business partner. While Selby manages the kitchen, his partner oversees the bar.

But running his own restaurants hadn’t always been the end goal.

It wasn’t something he thought he could pull off back in the UK. “I don’t think it was until I got here that I sort of realized I could open my own place.”

These days, a typical morning starts with breakfast alongside his teenage son at a nearby café run by his wife.

Then he’s off to Foxtrot Bistro to handle paperwork and check in with his manager before opening for the day. In the late afternoon, he stops by Blind Tiger to do the same, and usually finishes up around 8 p.m.

All his staff members are local. Thankfully, it’s not too hard to find experienced staff on the island, which has a booming F&B and hospitality scene, he said.

Staffing turnover isn’t too bad when the employees are cared for, he said. In his restaurants, there’s a 10% service charge, and every cent goes to his team.

“I just saw all the hotels were doing it, and they’re getting amazing staff,” he added.

Selby uses a combination of locally sourced and imported ingredients and says he tries to change some of his menu items seasonally to keep things fresh.

But balancing different tastes can be a challenge. “I sat with a group of friends the other day and told them I was starting a new menu for the restaurant. And, literally, every single one of them said a different dish that I can’t take off,” he said.

The challenges of running a food business

It’s not as easy to run a restaurant as people think. Competition is stiff on the island and the cost of operating a restaurant adds up quickly, Selby said.

“People think prices have to be cheap because it’s Thailand, but that doesn’t hold up when you’re using chorizo from Spain or cheese from France,” he said.

He’s learned over time that running a restaurant involves far more than simply serving food. There’s the operations side, like staffing and scheduling, and the finance side, like maintaining a steady cash flow.

Accounting takes up most of his time these days. “My sous chefs look after the kitchens and I just look over them, crunching numbers, making sure bills are paid, making sure we can pay the staff.”

One of the biggest challenges is managing the peak and off-peak tourist seasons, each lasting about six months. There’s a big difference between both, Selby added: “You could go down to a third of your revenue.”

It takes careful financial planning to make sure the restaurant at least breaks even in the low season, he said.

Despite the responsibility, being a business owner comes with a certain freedom — like the ability to take time off on short notice to be with family or attend a wedding, he said.

“I saw a thing on Instagram that said, if you’re a slave to your restaurant that you’ve opened, then you’re not doing it right. And I believe in that,” he said. “If they need me all the time, then I’m not doing it right.”

Building a life in Samui

Almost two decades on, Selby has firmly rooted himself in Samui. He speaks Thai, is married to a Thai woman, and his 15-year-old son attends an international school on the island.

Moving back to the UK is out of the question, he said.

If there’s something he misses about the UK, it would be the different seasons — and yet, it’s one of the reasons he left in the first place.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it? It’s like if you split up with a partner, you miss them for ages, but you don’t want to go back to them because that’s why you split up in the first place,” Selby said. “That’s the same with me and England.”

Do you have a story to share about moving to a new country and running a business? Contact this reporter at agoh@businessinsider.com.