A Taste of Asia to leave Village

When Selina Lum found a location for her restaurant in Siesta Key Village, she signed an eight-year lease thinking it would be a savvy business move.

Now, she and her husband, Lam Lum, South Asian immigrants, plan to sell the lease at their current Siesta location and move to a new location on Tamiami Trail.

After nearly one-and-a-half years in Siesta Village, Selina Lum and her husband stand inside the dusty remains of a Wendy’s on Tamiami Trail, which still bears the recognizable curved window front.

The new location is larger than the restaurant’s current site next to Gabbiano’s.

“Our daughter expressed interest in the family business,” Selina Lum said, so the couple decided to upsize to accommodate her interest. “It was always just the two of us.”

The Lums previously owned a restaurant in downtown Sarasota under the same name, where they were for six years ,before opening the Siesta Key Village site in September 2010.

“There were no Asian restaurants on (Siesta Key), so we weren’t expecting to leave so soon,” Selina Lum said.

The couple has already received three offers for the restaurant in the northwest corner of the plaza that also houses Davidson Drugs. Selina Lum said the Lum family is being rewarded for the hard work of undergoing two relocations in less than two years; they’re particularly excited to have their own parking lot.

“We’re life-and-death believers in the idea of karma,” Selina Lum said. “People get what they deserve.”