Today we’d like to introduce you to Issarapong Nawadee.
Hi Issarapong, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
During my service in US Air Force, I had an opportunity to work in a small family-owned Thai restaurant in Vacaville, CA. I rented a room from the owner of the restaurant at that time. Then one day, the owner asked me for help at her restaurant, and I told her, “I don’t have much experience cooking; the most experience I had was working with my uncle in another Thai restaurant in San Diego…okay, I give it a try” While I was working for her, I developed passion for cooking and culinary art. I asked myself, “what would be like to own the restaurant…that will be a dream.”
I want my dream to become a reality, so I tried learning everything that she was willing to teach me also developing my own recipes and style of cooking.
After I finished my military orders, I was lucky to end up working at local farmers’ market in Carlsbad. The owner of the food vendor where I was working at, she introduced me to the manager of the market “Ron & Sand.” She also encouraged and helped me to get the spot to open up my own food stall.
During that time, I met my wife, and we decided to open our own food stall. It was a first step of getting my cooking and food to be known to the public from market to market, from county to county. I was getting closer to make my dream of opening the restaurant come true.
After doing the farmers market for several years, I had opportunity to met James Markham, head/founder of the Windmill Food Hall. We decided to take a first step and opened up Thai Style Kitchen with him at Windmill food Hall.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Everything is going smooth except when we opened the storefront at Windmill Food Hall in September 2019, and Covid happened in the beginning 2020. We got lockdown, and store closed for couple of months.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am proud of when people like my food.
Thai Style Kitchen known for food freshly make to order and try to make it closer to street food as much as possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thaistylekitchen.com/
- Instagram: ThaiStyle_windmillfoodhall
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thaistylekitchen/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/thai-style-carlsbad-2
Image Credits
Thai Style Kitchen
