In the office we call them the Thai kings, and we call their business the Thai empire. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t get brothers Suchin Prapaisilp and Pat Prapaisilapa out of my head for the cover this month.
I settled on using Pat because I had a stronger idea. I wanted to see Pat facing west in the middle of Delmar Boulevard. That way, we could not only see his four restaurants but also Joe Edwards’ Pin-Up Bowl and The Pageant, because Pat mentions him in our April cover story Game Changers. I thought if readers didn’t know who he was, they’d at least know where he was.
In order to make it work, photographer Carmen Troesser insisted we be there at 6 a.m., so we could catch the sun peeking over Pat’s right shoulder. (Full disclosure: I am not a morning person; I was a little late.) When I got there, the street was mostly empty except for Pat and Carmen. My morning grog was lifted. After weeks of thinking about this photo, watching it come to life was so cool – and the cover, well it turned out as great as I had imagined.
This article appears in April 2011.
