One thing to know about me is that I am resilient. My business career started when I founded and managed three neighboring businesses in Bangkok's Central Business District: Yim Siam Regional Cuisine, Arisa Bar, and Rosemarin Day Spa. Following a series of events that disrupted travel to my country: SARS, a government coup, and a tsunami, my family moved back to our hometown of Ayutthaya to start over. Here, I operated four restaurants serving Thai, Japanese, and international cuisines to multinational customers. My flagship Ayutthaya Heritage Restaurant located in the UNESCO Heritage historic city earned a TripAdvisor Top-10 Rating for Ayutthaya Province from 2015-2018, and my Japanese restaurant group consisting of Maruyama, Tetsu, and Rikku consistently performed in the top three Japanese restaurant businesses in a city renown for hosting several major Japanese manufacturing plants. After 15 years running restaurants in Thailand, I rekindled a long-lost love when my husband Frankie returned to Southeast Asia. We married in December 2018, and after gaining my work authorization, I immediately joined the city's hospitality industry. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with my new home, New Orleans.

I founded Pomelo | Thai Boutique Restaurant in July 2021, in the midst of the global pandemic, and days before New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Ida. We eventually opened our doors in October that year. Through Pomelo, I express my passion for bringing community together with food, sharing this passion with the New Orleans community through my own unique brand of Thai hospitality. My first restaurant in the U.S., Pomelo is a specialty Thai restaurant serving a selection of specialties ranging from dishes like pok-pok noodle, curries, and a range of Thai salads. A tiny neighborhood restaurant nestled in Uptown New Orleans on a stretch of Magazine Street revered for its boutique shops and great dining options, I estimate that Pomelo's customer base is approximately 75% locals (many from our neighborhood) and 25% visitors to the city. Here, we create a fun, happy, exciting, and unique dining experience, offering opportunities to try something new and "eat your way through Thailand

My second U.S. restaurant, Good Catch | Thai Urban Bistro, opened in January 2024, and serves as an expression of my love for Thai food and Thai culture (and how the two are so highly intertwined). Good Catch offers a full range of authentic Thai dishes, specializing in Thai seafood that benefits from Louisiana's abundance of local Gulf offerings. It's worth noting that I previously worked one of my first U.S. jobs in this location as a server at the restaurant that previously occupied the space. A coastal oasis in the heart of New Orleans' Central Business District, Good Catch hosts a diverse customer base, ranging from intimate dinners to conference attendees, special events, business lunches, and we of course love serving our regular guests who live in the surrounding neighborhoods. With Good Catch's larger space and full bar, I enjoy exploring new cooking techniques and presentation, and crafting bold and flavorful cocktails. We also offer off-site catering throughout New Orleans to further spread the joy of Thai hospitality.