Smart Restaurant Plus is a free programme for restaurant owners run by the Department of Business Development (DBD) of Thailand’s Ministry of Commerce and Chef’s Club by makro. Its sixth season took place in 2026: four two-day sessions in Udon Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Chiang Rai and Chonburi, attended by more than 600 restaurateurs. It covers management, finance, tax and digital marketing, all in Thai. The 2027 season has not been announced yet; in previous years applications opened in December–January.
Why the state cares about restaurants
According to DBD data for the end of 2025, restaurants generated about 338 billion baht in revenue for the country, 7% more than a year earlier. The sector has 25,963 companies with combined registered capital of 304.7 billion baht, and 3,616 new ones opened in 2025 alone. Competition is growing faster than the market, and DBD Director-General Poonpong Naiyanapakorn summed up the idea of the programme like this: in the digital age “good taste” alone is no longer enough, and an owner has to be not just a cook but a manager too.
The programme is in its sixth year: before the 2026 season, 11 cohorts and more than 1,500 restaurants had been through it.
How the 2026 season went
The first session, the twelfth cohort, took place on 22–23 January at the Centara hotel in Udon Thani, with 180 entrepreneurs from the north-east signed up. DBD chose Udon Thani because it is the trade and transport hub of upper Isan: restaurants there are the first thing tourists see and one of the main ways to keep their money in the region.
Nakhon Si Thammarat followed in February and Chiang Rai in March. The last session was held on 28–29 April at the Bangsaen Heritage hotel in Bang Saen, Chonburi province, with 250 people on the list of accepted participants. Summing up the season, the DBD Director-General called Chonburi the economic centre of the East, visited by more than 20 million tourists a year, “especially Pattaya, Bang Saen and the EEC”, and advised local restaurants to focus on fresh seafood, classic Thai cuisine and fusion.
What it teaches
The curriculum is the same for every session: two days, about 12 hours of classes in total (6 hours a day). It covers digital marketing; restaurant finance; accounting and taxes, which the organisers themselves call owners’ biggest headache; people management; and kitchen organisation, taught by chefs from Chef’s Club by makro. The speakers include accountants, restaurant industry practitioners and chefs, among them a coach of the national culinary team. A separate aim is to bring the region’s restaurateurs together into a network that keeps talking after the training.
DBD does not publish measurable results along the lines of “participants’ revenue grew by such-and-such”.
How to get in
Intakes are announced on the DBD website in the “training and seminars” section (อบรม/สัมมนา): each session has its own page with the application dates and the list of accepted participants. Participation is free. The planned quota is about 150 places per session, but in practice more people are admitted: 180 in Udon Thani, 250 in Chonburi. In the 2026 intake, participants had to own a restaurant and attend both days.
Enquiries go to DBD’s service business division, hotline 1570. The training is in Thai, and the terms don’t say whether a restaurant with a foreign owner can take part, so it is best to check with DBD.
What else DBD offers restaurants
- Thai SELECT is a quality mark for Thai cuisine. In 2026 there were 423 applications and 183 restaurants received the mark; in total 517 restaurants across the country now hold it. The criteria are taste and presentation, ingredients and menu, hygiene, atmosphere and service.
- Restaurant Synergy is training run together with LINE MAN Wongnai; in 2026 the third cohort focused on restaurant data analysis.
- Restaurant Innovation Forum is a forum held together with OSMEP, the small business agency, on 15 September in Bangkok.
What else matters to restaurateurs in Pattaya
For a foreign owner in 2026 the main question is not training but the ownership structure. Since 1 August DBD Order 2/2569 has been in force, and not every company has to file bank statements under it. They are required if the company has foreign shareholders holding less than half or appoints a foreigner as an authorised signatory: in that case Thai shareholders submit an investment declaration and a bank statement covering the three months before they paid for their shares. DBD has named seven tourist provinces for on-site inspections, and Chonburi is first on the list, followed by Rayong, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Surat Thani, Phuket and Krabi. There is more in the articles on DBD inspections in 2026 and on registering a company.
The bottom line
Smart Restaurant Plus is a rare example of a Thai government agency teaching business for free and travelling to the regions to do it, Chonburi included. For Thai restaurant owners it is a practical way to tighten up their finances and marketing and build connections. For foreigners the programme is less accessible because of the language, but the course itself shows where DBD is pushing the industry: towards transparent accounting and proper management, which is exactly what companies are now being checked for.
For the venue rules that changed in 2026, see the article on selling alcohol to drunk customers.
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