From food to customer service, Thai Garden's Panom keeps it authentic

“People don’t know me much because I go around a lot,” he said, referencing his travels between the two Thai restaurants he co-owns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. “Most of the time I’m working.”

And even while talking to a Sentinel reporter on Tuesday, Panom remained active, welcoming customers as the lunch crowd came in at his downtown Keene restaurant. When he finally caught a moment, he sat down and explained how the eatery — which opened in 1997 — came to be.

“Thai food came to New England for the first time in 1979,” Panom, who is from the Nakhon Ratchasima province in northeastern Thailand, explained. “In the ’80s, ’90s, it spread so fast.”

Panom, 71, moved to the United States in 1984 to work with the Royal Caribbean cruise line as an assistant bar manager. He lived in Miami for five years, and attended summer classes at the hotel school at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., in 1988. Then he moved to New England in 1990 and worked as a waiter at a Thai restaurant in Marlborough, Mass. A few years later, he met his wife, Wanwassana Chanphanichcharoen, in the Boston area.

Wanwassana’s uncle Pattana Promploy was a chef at a Thai restaurant in Boston, and as Panom was setting out to establish his own restaurant, he connected with Pattana.

One night in the mid-’90s, when Panom was still working at the restaurant in Massachusetts, he shared the desire to open his own restaurant with his wife.

“Why don’t we open somewhere else in Massachusetts?” That suggestion, that the couple create their own establishment, led him to partner with Pattana and create Thai Garden in Keene in 1997.

Panom has lived in the city since.

As someone who has always been very sociable, Panom said he prefers running mid-scale restaurants, which allow closer interactions with customers, while Pattana manages the kitchen. Since Thai Garden opened, Panom has established Thai Garden of Northampton, Mass., and several others, though he later sold the others.

Roger Weinreich, who owns Good Fortune Jewelry next door to Keene’s Thai Garden and rents out the space to Panom, met him and his wife when Panom first moved to Keene. “They were going to Brattleboro to open a restaurant there,” Weinreich said. “They kind of drove down Main Street in Keene … and fell in love with the place and saw our vacancy, and that’s how he found his way to Keene.” Panom would eventually open a Thai Garden in Brattleboro in 2004, although the restaurant has since closed.

When conceiving Thai Garden, Panom wanted to make sure customers received the authentic Thai experience, rather than tasting Thai food fitted to a New England palate.

“City people, and people over here, never know what Thai food looks like,” he said. “We cook over here more like … 100 percent like in Thailand.” He added that he tries to get as close as he can to recreating an authentic Thai experience, utilizing herbs such as basil and curry and ingredients such as bean sprouts and shrimp.

He said customers love the food, but serving low-cost, authentic Thai meals has been more difficult lately. “The problem over here is everything’s pricey … we make lots of sales, but we cannot make profit,” he explained. Supply chain costs have not only raised overhead, but have also forced him to spend money to reprint menus so that they reflect current meal prices.

Panom said he faced challenges with higher-than-usual demand during the pandemic. “I had a hundred calling in an hour,” he said. He prioritized delivery during this time, but added that he prefers dine-in services because of the connections, which happen to be his favorite part of the job.

“In Keene, different from anywhere, Keene people are so nice to us,” he emphasized. “The people in this town welcome us.” He pointed to his arms: goosebumps up and down. Some customers have shared with Panom that they enjoy Thai Garden food every day, including a Dartmouth professor who told Panom that he once ate at the restaurant for eight days in a two-week period.

Panom paused to greet customers as they entered the establishment. “This is their favorite place to eat,” a customer said, referencing his parents who had accompanied him to the restaurant. Another couple’s faces lit up when they saw Panom approach their table. Soon, the sound of clinking silverware and conversation filled the air.

Weinreich praised Panom’s kind-natured demeanor. “It’s this kind of upbeat attitude and outgoing friendliness that is such an asset to our community. It’s like, you walk into Thai Garden and you get incredible food and incredible service, but you get incredible kindness and connection.” Since the two met in 1997, they’ve become close friends.

They share a passion for sports and have even attended a New England Patriots game together. Weinreich also traveled to Thailand with Panom to visit his family. “That was totally awesome, you know, just being there and being part of their culture, which is wonderful,” Weinreich said.

“I cannot say enough great things, we’ve become really good friends, too,” he added. “There’s just an element to how sweet and kind he is — and funny — as a person.”

Panom was born in the Nakhon Ratchasima province of Thailand in 1952 but moved to Bangkok for school when he was young. There, he later worked at the five-star Mandarin International Hotel and the Peninsula Bangkok hotel, where he served high-profile clients including Prince Philip and the King of Thailand. He said he was never nervous during these interactions because everyone is the same beneath the surface. He summed up his interactions with such clientele in just a few words: “You were born, and [you] die … like regular people.”

This philosophy of life extends throughout all his professional interactions, including those with customers who might complain.

“Some people ask me, when they’re done, ‘Why [do] you keep smiling … even when I gave you hard time?’ ” he shrugged. “You’re going to get [a] complaint anyway. You do the same thing with one person, and another one don’t like it, so that’s what it is.”

This come-as-it-may attitude began during his work at hotels as a waiter and assistant maître d’, a person who oversees food and beverage services, where he had to field many complaints from guests. Now, he says, the only thing that’s essential is being genuine in interactions. “I show them that I’m not fake, from here,” he said as he gestured toward his heart. “When you get [a] complaint, you have to have your heart … and show them you’re real.”

He acknowledged challenges he faced when immigrating to America, specifically with learning new customs. “Every place in the world with culture is different, but you have to learn, you have to accept — sometimes you do something wrong,” he said. As an example, he noted that in the United States, flashing one’s headlights to another driver tells them to drive first. In Thailand, flashing one’s high beams means not to drive.

He received his bachelor’s degree in law in 1980 from Ramkhamhaeng University and his barrister-at-law degree in 1983.

This legal training has helped him navigate the various regulations surrounding the service industry, especially when it came to opening Thai Garden of Brattleboro, where a Dunkin’ Donuts once stood.

“It used to be a gas station before Dunkin’,” he said. “There’s a regulation you cannot build any restaurant on top of a gas station. So, they had to change the soil.” This allowed him to build his restaurant there, he noted. Although Thai Garden of Brattleboro no longer exists, he still owns the property.

No matter how many restaurants he owned all over New England, Panom chooses to live in Keene.

“I like here a lot compared to my hometown,” he said.

“I’m so pleased they welcome us over here and keep supporting us and make us like a family even when we come from somewhere else.”