Today we’d like to introduce you to Nattapon “Ranma” Thitathan.
Hi Ranma, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When my family invested in restaurants over 30 years ago I noticed that our menu wasn’t too far off from any other Thai restaurant menu. Quite actually, the items were almost identical. It didn’t really seem to bother me much because I had always thought that Thai food was just the same. This all changed when I actually had to live in Thailand. When I was 16-17 years old I had to move back to Thailand because my parents divorced. I ended up going to the University in Bangkok and living with my father. There, he introduced me to unique dishes from the southern region of Thailand. He, being from the south, opened my palate to a whole new world of flavors. Different curries, soups and stir-fry’s caught my attention as my worldview of Thai cuisine changed upside down. I started to realize that these dishes were the same as the dishes on the menu in American Thai restaurants, but they tasted completely different. At that point I was confused. I started to think that the dishes in America was just “Westernized”. I thought that they were just adjusted to facilitate an American palate. I was actually convinced of this for a long time until I finished my studies and started to work in journalism. Because of the nature on my job, I had to travel throughout Thailand on various scoops and events. I also had to eat. So I started to notice that the same everyday dishes would taste different depending on which region I’d go to. Then one day I ordered a “Pad Thai” in the northern provinces. I found that it had some sort of peanut sauce infused into the Pad Thai. Curious, I asked the young server on why they would add this sauce to the dish? She told me that she didn’t know, “it was just how her grandfather taught them how to make it”. It blew my mind. I started to reminisce about the time my father introduced my to a southern style Pad Thai called the “Chaiya” style, which had roasted coconut cream, shallots, and garlic mixed in. Though the two were called “Pad Thai”, they were very different. As I got to travel the country more, I got to try many other styles of Pad Thai as well. So this begs the question… Who is authentic? Then I realized… They all are! It just depends on where you go! So from that knowledge, I decided to re-educate the people here on the different styles of Pad Thai that one could possibly encounter. Most people here have no idea that a dish in a Thai restaurant can vary in flavor or style because of the region their cooks are from. Most people automatically assume that the restaurant is “authentic” if they like the flavor of the dish and/or deem the restaurant to be “unauthentic” if the taste differs from what their used to. Most of the time this happens when a person tries a new restaurant and it doesn’t taste like their go-to spot. Some people even visit Thailand on a brief vacation and come back to dishes that don’t taste the same as they remember. Then they write it in a “Google Review” as not being authentic causing the restaurant to lose reputation. That’s why I decided to build a restaurant based on the education of the regional differences of Thai cuisine. That’s why I created The Pad Thai Stand.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road was and has never been smooth. In every glimpse of hope there is always something that will dampen your spirits. In The Pad Thai Stands journey, it was always met with uncertainty. When we started the concept of the different styles of Pad Thai at my first restaurant almost 20 years ago we were met with ridicule. Patrons didn’t believe that Pad Thai could be “‘different”. They considered another style inauthentic because their “go-to” restaurant didn’t offer it and their disdain and disbelief manifested as an online review under anonymity. Even Thai people that came to dine in sometimes showed doubt and expressed their disbelief to their group. This made the reputation of the dish and the restaurant drop rapidly. A few bad reviews early in a restaurant’s life would devastate it. Especially, if it came from fellow Thai people. After that, we had COVID-19. Many restaurants that we knew and loved closed down before our eyes. We decided to put a take out window in place of the small dining area. With the blessing of God, that saved our restaurant from being shut down. We were able to make the day on very minimal to-go sales. When COVID subsided we had a fresh start on the market, but ran into staffing issues. California decided to rapidly raise the minimum wage for employees causing staffing costs to sky rocket out of control. We could not find suitable candidates at costs that we were able to afford. Produce and shipment costs were rising because of the wage hike and there was nothing that we could do about it. We had to bear with a really bad time and working over 100 hours a week just to survive. It was also hard to find good workers because people didn’t want to work for low paying jobs like a restaurant, especially when there was little to no tip. We had been reduced to a take out and delivery restaurant because of COVID. When we finally broke free from that we ran into another problem. The amount of money that we were making from a takeout restaurant wasn’t enough to pay for mortgage and our costs of living, so we had to expand. If we didn’t expand, we would not have enough money to have a proper life. The problem became – finding the most suitable location and finding the money to buy it. Luckily, the Pacific Beach location entered the market. It was small and in an awesome location on Garnet avenue, but the problem was, every restaurant that had settled the spot all failed. Locals called it a cursed location. I really had to dig in deep to overcome the fear of failing. My entire family fought me on this because they were worried that I might dig the restaurant an early grave by purchasing this location. After thinking long and hard, I decided to move forward with the purchase. Over the span of 6 months it started to turn a profit and we were saved. Now we had two restaurants that were doing good. The next problem was that neither of the restaurants we had were big enough to prep the ingredients to cater to the growth of each restaurant. In simple terms, we didn’t have enough room to make the ingredients to operate. So, I decided that a distribution center or “DC” was the needed remedy to solve this problem. We now had to take all the preparation of ingredients out of all the restaurants and move them to a central location to prep and distribute. It was the only way to maintain restaurants that are small in size. The problem was where would the DC be and how much would it cost to obtain? I found a suitable location in San Marcos at a price that was reasonable. So now we do all the preparation for all the locations from this central kitchen and distribute them accordingly. The DC also is a restaurant location so it can also make money to cover all its immediate expenses.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Pad Thai Stand / Thitathan LLC?
For “The Pad Thai Stand” we specialize in different styles of Pad Thai from different regions of Thailand. This sets us apart because many restaurants that serve ethnic cuisine don’t really educate you on where their from. This makes the taste of the food offered different depending on the restaurant you go to. This would result in a patron judging the food based on personal preference rather than judging the food on cultural accuracy. In our example: Thailand is a very large place that has been around for many hundred years. Some major parts of Thailand were their own country at one point in time, so there are a lot of cultural integrations over the year. So what does that mean to the discerning patron? It means that if you go to a different part of the country and order the same dish in another part, you may get the same dish tasting very different. This is because the people are different and their cultures are different. They will add flavors to the dish depending on how they were brought up. Therefore, in our case, Pad Thais are very different throughout Thailand. What makes us unique is that we are the only Thai restaurant that educates our customers on the cultural differences in Thailand.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love our city! I believe it’s “America’s finest”! For a large portion of my life, I was raised here in San Diego. In America, this city is all I know. I love the weather first and foremost. Believe me when I say that because I lived in Thailand for a third of my life. Hot and humid verses mild 70 degree climate with low humidity most of the year is awesome! What I least like about our city is that it is slower in progression than other parts of the world. What I mean by that is that people here are not as adventurous to try different things. Not like Los Angeles or Orange County in which there are tons more ethnic foods everywhere. People here are majorly stuck in their normal habits and are less likely to adventure into different areas. This is just my opinion and self observation.
Pricing:
- $15 Chicken / Tofu / Vegetables Pad Thai
- $16 Dollars Shrimp Pad Thai
- $5 Thai Tea – Half n Half
- &6 Thai Tea – Coconut Cream / Almond Milk
Contact Info:
- Website: https://padthaistand.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepadthaistand/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePadThaiStand
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-pad-thai-stand-san-diego-2?osq=The+Pad+Thai+Stand&dd_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yelp.com%2F
