About

Why we’re called 246

In Thailand, the good food is down the alley.

The 246 Thai Street storefront on Elden Street in Herndon, red channel letters above the entrance and an OPEN sign in the window. — Our number, on our street. 171 Elden Street, Unit 130.

Soi 2, Soi 4, Soi 6

Not on the main road. Not behind a big glass front. Down a soi — one of the small side streets where the shops don’t really have names, they have numbers.

And not just any soi. Soi 2, Soi 4 and Soi 6 are the ones with the good food. You don’t tell a friend to meet you at the place with the nice sign — you give them the number, and it is one of those three.

Two, four, six. That is the whole name. Nobody sat in a room and workshopped it. We named the place after the streets that taught us how to cook — and then we had to live up to them.

Nothing got adapted on the way over

The recipes came with us as they are. The Northern curries. The Isan grill. The noodle soups that need a whole morning of simmering before the first bowl leaves the kitchen.

Khao Soi. Kaeng Hung Lay. Yen Ta Fo, the pink one. Boat Beef Noodle Soup, dark and spiced the way Ayutthaya makes it. Gai-Yang and som tum from the Northeast, larb with the herbs it is supposed to have.

We cook them here the way we cook them at home — because that is what they are. Home food. Not a version of home food, adjusted until it stopped tasting like anything.

We serve what we eatIt is the shortest true thing we can say about this place — and it is printed on every bag that leaves the kitchen.

Every dish on the menu is something our family actually eats. Nothing is on there because it tested well, or because it is what people expect a Thai restaurant to serve.

If we would not order it ourselves, it is not on the menu. And if we would, you will usually find it here — even when it is the dish nobody else nearby bothers to make.

So you don’t have to fly to Thailand for this.
You just have to find Unit 130.

The entrance to 246 Thai Street, with the ramp and free parking directly outside the door. — The door, the ramp and the lot. Park anywhere out front — it is free.

Finding us

We are at 171 Elden Street, Unit 130, Herndon, VA 20170 — inside the office building next to Virginia Tire & Auto, not on a retail strip. Look for the Virginia Tire sign first, then turn into the driveway beside it. Parking is free in the lot, right outside our door, and both the entrance and the lot are wheelchair accessible.

Herndon knew this room as Thai Luang for about thirty years. We opened here in March 2026 — same room, new family, new kitchen.

Lunch 11am–3pm daily. Dinner 5–10pm Sunday to Thursday, 5–11pm Friday and Saturday. (703) 467-0111

See the menu Order online