Restaurants | A stroke destroyed a Hamburg entrepreneur’s dream of a beach bar – The restaurant in Vantaa is also closing its doors

Koh On the beach of Lanta in southern Thailand, there is a closed beach bar with an extraordinary view of the paradise beaches: a sauna.

The bar is called Mike’s Beach Bar, and it was founded by an entrepreneur from Vantaa together with his local business partner Mikko Sorjolahti. The name is reminiscent of Sorjolahti’s hamburger restaurants in the capital region, but that’s where the beach bar’s similarities with Mike’s Diner end.

After a long bureaucratic struggle, Mike’s Beach Bar opened its doors and tentacles in Sorjolahti in December of last year, but its legend was short-lived so far.

In March, Sorjolahti had a stroke while working in his bar. A long dream of a restaurant in the tropics turned into a difficult week in a Thai hospital and finally a hospital flight to Finland.

Heart attack left its mark on Sorjolahti and the time of winter without the entrepreneur’s presence in the restaurants of Vantaa.

The fate of the beach bar is still unknown, but In Vantaa Sanomat’s vote Mike’s Diner in Myyrmäki, which was chosen as the best burger restaurant in Vantaa, does not.

“There are still two Mike’s Diners in Finland, but Myyrmäki will be abandoned at the end of the month,” says Sorjolahti. Another restaurant is located in Tikkurila.

“I’m terribly afraid that my career is pretty stomped on.”

Myyrmäki So Mike’s Diner is open for the last day on Saturday. In the future, Sorjolahti will focus on running one restaurant. Tikkurila’s restaurant continues to operate, and according to Sorjolahti, efforts are being made to develop it further.

Mike’s Beach Bar still exists and Sorjolahti’s business partner has plans for it, but opening is uncertain.

“There is no semblance of information as to whether I will ever open it and go there.”

Sorjolahti had dreamed of establishing a beach bar in Thailand for a long time. The reasons are certainly easy for many Finns to identify with, he reflects.

“Six, seven, eight years ago, I started thinking that it would be nice to be able to work in a warm place,” says Sorjolahti. “Is it [pimeä] good for mental health.”

“I didn’t set out to pursue this as a business. I went in search of life.”

Of all the paradise beaches in Thailand, Koh Lanta was chosen as the destination, because Sorjolahti had fallen in love with the place before, and he had acquaintances there. Even now, Mike’s Beach Bar is home to an acquaintance from Sorjolahti.

Starting the company in itself was not difficult, says Sorjolahti. According to him, it is easy in Thailand as long as a local business partner is ready.

The real problems started after that: “There was bureaucracy, corruption stinks and nothing goes through without you opening your wallet,” describes Sorjolahti. You had to drive all the way from neighboring Malaysia to get a work visa.

Cerebral infarction Sorjolahti got it when installing protective plates on the windows of the beach bar. He describes it as the type of heart attack that starts in the neck and which more often strikes people in their twenties and thirties, for example when riding a water jet.

Sorjolahti describes the time spent in the hospital in the city of Trang as “wild.”

“I detached myself from my body and thought, ‘Now we’ve been sent,'” he describes.

The heart attack took away the ability to swallow and feeling on the other side of the body. In his worst moments, Sorjolahti says he regretted going to Thailand, but in the end he would have regretted not going.

“These are experiences. It would have been a shame if I hadn’t done it.”

“This wouldn’t be any different in Finland. In the same way, you should be alone at night [sairaala]in the room.”

Read more: Mikko Sorjolahti marches against the current in the middle of the pandemic and expands his restaurant chain that lives in the 1950s – “I have a good itch for this”