Forget the menus.  These diners know what they want. 

They’ve known for a while.  And they’ve been waiting — some more patiently than others — for almost 10 months, eagerly anticipating the reopening of Toronto’s Salad King restaurant on Yonge St.

Salad King, which specializes in Thai cuisine, is particularly popular with Ryerson University students.  It was forced to close last April when the building at 335 Yonge St., where it was located, was deemed unsafe by city officials. 

With little fanfare, Salad King reopened across the street at 340 Yonge, Saturday afternoon, a few days before the officially scheduled Tuesday opening, says owner Ernest Liu.  They wanted to work out the kinks, aware they’ll be slammed on Tuesday. 

Many of Salad King’s most faithful habitués spent the last many months posting their dish list on Facebook — favourites like Hot Cashew Chicken, says 26-year-old Matt Sweet. “ I’m going there everyday for a week when it opens.” 

Carmen Branje is jonesing for the Hot Thai Noodles and spring rolls. “ Whenever friends and family come to Toronto, it’s usually the first place we go.”  And still others extol the virtues of Salad King’s incendiary hot chili dishes, the Chicken Pad Thai and the Yummy Golden Curry.  Dining at Salad King comes with certain bragging rights as dishes often come with a chili scale from one (mild) to 20 (scalding).  Salad King has been a hot spot for Ryerson students for years. 

Liz and Matt Newbold, both 29, stopped by on Saturday afternoon, mouths watering and taste buds on point.  They were disappointed to learn Salad King hadn’t quite opened yet.  The couple works in the area and say they’ve been anticipating the taste of Salad King’s popular Vietnamese noodles as well as the restaurant’s bustling atmosphere and the communal, cafeteria-style seating. 

On Saturday, in a flurry of last-minute preparations, Liu drew a deep breath and confirmed he is prepared to satisfy Toronto’s pent-up appetite. 

The minimalist interior is a combination of chocolate brown woods and glistening stainless steel, not too different from the restaurant’s previous digs across the street. 

“It’s more spacious than the other place,” said Kathy Huyng, 25, there for lunch Sunday with fiancé Tom Gaschler, 31. “ It’s weird to see it so quiet.  The other place was like a zoo, but it was fast and efficient no matter how crowded.”  Huyng knew about the “soft” opening because a friend of hers is on the restaurant’s design team. 

From the second floor of the new restaurant diners can still see the site of the razed building that once housed the famous eatery. 

Last April, after a brick façade collapsed on the building at Yonge and Gould streets, Liu was forced to vacate the space he’d rented and where he’d built his business over the previous 20 years. “ It was April 26, 2010 at 12:30 p.m. when the wall collapsed,” says Liu. “ We were given 10 minutes to leave the building.” 

That evening, wearing a hard hat and safety boots, Liu was escorted by his landlord, a police officer and a city building inspector back into the restaurant where he was permitted to retrieve company documents from the Salad King safe. 

After losing hope that the building would ever be deemed safe for occupation, Liu signed a lease for the location across the street.  In the seven months, from April to November, Liu estimates he suffered $250,000 in lost profit. 

The decaying building at 335 Yonge, owned by Toronto’s Lalani Group, was left vacant after Liu and the other tenants dispersed. 

Then on Jan. 3, the deteriorating roofless structure, a building constructed in 1888 which previously housed the Empress Hotel, was destroyed by fire.  Following an investigation police confirmed it was arson. 

Liu had promised his regulars that he’d be open for business in mid-December, but a holdup in hydro services caused further delays, he says. 

Liu also owns the upmarket Thai restaurant Linda (named after his wife Linda Fung) in the Shops at Don Mills complex.  That restaurant, opened in April 2009, set him back $1.6 million, he says. 

He’s also sunk more than $1 million into the renovation for the new Salad King space.  Liu jokes, “I’m a little tight on cash now.”