I had lunch last Friday with my friend Thayukorn Sommanus.
Thayukorn owns the Piya Thai restaurant, now located at 1804 E. 32nd St. in Joplin. When I first met Thayukorn, he was running his restaurant in a little place just off Highway 171 in Webb City. Since then, Thayukorn has moved up a bit.
His new place is a little bigger than the restaurant at his original location, but not much bigger. The difference for Thayukorn is that his new restaurant, located in a building that used to be a Babe’s Drive-in, gets more traffic. Of course, his rent at the new place is higher, but that’s the price you pay for moving up.
While I ate the catfish luncheon special — which was excellent, by the way — Thayukorn and I chatted. I was the only person in the restaurant at the time, and he seemed a little embarrassed by that fact. But while we talked, several people stopped to pick up lunch at the drive-through.
I told Thayukorn not to worry. I told him that his restaurant looks great and that his chef, Phanomkorn Chalee, still serves up one of the best menus in town.
“You’ll be busy tonight,” I assured him.
“Yes,” Thayukorn said, but I’m not sure he believed me.
That’s the thing about running your own business: You’re only as good as your last customer.
His business has been OK, Thayukorn said, but even when business is OK, you still are going to suffer sometimes. On Friday, Thayukorn was suffering one of those slow times, and when you run your own business, you worry that one slow time can turn into another and another and another.
Even when you have a busy streak, when folks are rushing in your door, you worry that they will stop doing so.
You worry a lot when you run your own business, I think is what I’m trying to say here.
I worked in several restaurants when I was in college. When you’re in college and working in a restaurant, you don’t mind when things get slow. Sure, I guess you could make a case that if things get too slow you might be out of a job, but most college kids don’t usually sweat those kinds of things. At least I didn’t.
But if you own the place, if folks are depending on you for a paycheck, you worry when things get slow.
That’s why I admire those folks who are brave enough to go out on their own. I admire folks who are willing to work without a net. That’s what you do when you open your own business, by the way. You work without a net. When you work for someone else, that someone else usually is your safety net. There is no safety net when you open your own business.
There are a lot of people who have opened their own businesses in the area and have done very well for themselves. But there are just as many people who went out on their own and didn’t do so well. I admire the unsuccessful business owners just much as I admire the successful business owners.
In the past few years, several people I know have poured a lot of their own money into local businesses only to see them, for one reason or another, fail. But the thing is, they tried. They had a dream, and they followed that dream. The fact that the dream didn’t work out is sort of beside the point. The point is, they tried.
I also know folks who have started their own businesses and have done well. When I first met Floyd and Jackie Hackett, they were selling their now famous chicken wings out of a small place on Langston Hughes-Broadway. Now, Hackett Hot Wings is a downtown fixture in Floyd and Jackie’s large, expansive place at 520 S. Main St.
But knowing Floyd and Jackie, I’m pretty sure they don’t spend much time savoring their success. I’m pretty sure they spend most of their time working to make sure folks keep walking into their restaurant.
That’s what you do when you own your own business. You get up, you go to work and you try to work a little harder than you did the day before.
After I finished my catfish on Friday, I talked with Thayukorn some more. He told me that friends have told him that if he can make it through the first year of business, he’ll be OK.
“One friend, who opened a restaurant, told me he cried every day the first year. The next year he still cried, but not every day,” Thayukorn said with a laugh.
Then he told me he was worried that people don’t know they can dine in at this place. You can, by the way, and the place looks great. He told me he was worried because people weren’t ordering his catfish lunch special. He told me he was worried because ... well, he was just worried.
But the funny thing is, despite everything, Thayukorn seemed happy. Worried but happy.
And why not? He’s following his dream.
