The Thai Zap food trailer will mark its third anniversary in Pocatello this June. With a Facebook five-star rating and more than 100 reviews, owners Vnaraj “Vahn” and Wongtipapon “Mam” Phranasith have much to celebrate.

People from as far away as California and New York have found them through Facebook and stopped to eat at the couple’s trailer at the U-Save Car Rental parking lot at 1540 Yellowstone Ave. Some customers, surprised to find such high quality Thai food in small-town Pocatello, have suggested the Phranasiths move their food trailer to a larger city, Mam said.

“When it comes down to it, though, we just want to make enough to get by and stay in Pocatello,” Vahn said. “We are so grateful to be here. A lot of people complain about Pocatello and want to get out, but you realize when you move away and come back that this feels like home.”

But neither of the Phranasiths originally felt this way about Pocatello.

Vahn was born in Laos. His father was a prominent doctor and his mother was French professor. People bowed to Vahn’s father when greeted. Vahn was one of five children and each child had a personal nanny.

But when the Communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party took over Laos in 1975, his family, like many others, was forced to house and feed live-in Communist soldiers who spied on their conversations and activities. The stress of the situation eventually caused his parents to divorce.

At age 11, Vahn left home and essentially became homeless. For about three years, he lived off and on with the Hmong monks in a Buddhist temple when they had room for him. Or he worked in the agricultural fields with relatives. He remembers often feeling sick from starvation.

Meanwhile, Vahn’s father escaped to a Thailand refugee camp and put in an application to be sponsored by the United Way to come to the United States. Vahn said refugees would often wait years to gain a one-time-only interview for sponsorship.

If everyone on the paperwork wasn’t present or if anything was out of order at the time of the interview, the sponsorship would be denied. In the case of Vahn’s mother, a misspelling of a name caused her and three of his siblings to end up living in Japan. Vahn did not see his mother again for 23 years.

At age 14, Vahn escaped to Thailand to join his father by swimming across the heavily guarded Mekong River. Thirty-five years later, Vahn is still haunted by nightmares of what he saw and experienced during those years in Laos.

Eventually, Vahn’s family settled in San Diego. Vahn was sent to live with a cousin in Pocatello and began his junior year at Pocatello High School. He found those years very lonely and he couldn’t relate to teenage culture in the United States.

“When I came to America and went to high school, I had a hard time fitting in because I was pretty much an adult by age 12,” Vahn said. “I just couldn’t understand why teenagers were crying over such simple things and even threatening to commit suicide.”

Vahn also started working at a grocery store for $3.50 an hour to send funds to his mother and siblings who were still in the refugee camps in Thailand at the time.

“I didn’t have to send the money,” Vahn said. “But I just felt I needed to help take care of them.”

After high school, Vahn started attending Idaho State University. He worked nights at a Blackfoot potato factory to pay tuition. He said he had always wanted to become an architect, but that dream never materialized. Instead, he quit school to work full time and provide for two half-brothers who came to live with him and send money to his mother’s family.

“I just felt like it was my responsibility,” Vahn said. “I didn’t want them to go through stuff like I did.”

Vahn met and married Mam after he had finished raising his brothers. Mam was born in Thailand. She, too, worked to help provide for her family.

Mam told Vahn, “If we get married and I move to America with you, I have to work. I want to send money home and help support my family. If you just want me and not my family, I don’t want you. … In many things we are different, but in this one thing we are the same — we are committed to helping our families.”

Vahn agreed and Mam moved to Pocatello with Vahn in 2002. Recalling her first reaction to the area, Mam said, “I wondered how I was going to survive. Thailand is so green and this was all brown. I wondered if something was wrong with the mountains. America wasn’t like in the movies I saw in Thailand.”

Some of Mam’s schooling in Thailand included cooking classes and she had a dream of one day opening a Thai restaurant. In 2003, they moved to Rhode Island to help Vahn’s sister run her restaurant.

“I knew how to cook, but I wanted to gain experience and learn how to run a restaurant in America,” Mam said.

A few years later, they returned to Pocatello and both worked in the Heinz Frozen Foods factory to save money for their restaurant.

But between sending money to family, their own three children and the closure of the factory in 2013, the dream was still financially impossible. That’s when the idea for the trailer occurred.

They took a risk and sank their life savings into a down-payment on the customized trailer.

Vahn said friends and family thought they were crazy. Several times over the next year, they nearly lost what they had invested. But community members stepped up to help ensure that such things as the loan and the parking location could be secured. Thai Zap opened in 2015.

When asked how they handled the stress of their lives and situation, Vahn said, “From the Hmong, I learned to overcome your situation and what they call your self-suffering. Sometimes life happens and you can’t blame it on people like your parents or society. Hmongs teach you to leave the outside world behind and be at peace with yourself no matter what is happening. Back in Laos, I didn’t worry about what I would eat tomorrow. I ate what I had and I didn’t cry that it wasn’t steak or lobster.”

Mam added, “I worry, too, but you just have to do it. You know how people say they are stressed over this or that? I don’t understand stress and being depressed. I don’t wonder why things are happening to me. I just think, ‘It’s happened,’ and go to work at the problem.”

And go to work the Phranasiths did. They now offer 25 different menu choices at their trailer. They also offer catering during their off-season.

Mam said that the key to good Thai food is the fresh ingredients, quality meat and the real Thai chili peppers — both fresh and ground — that they stock directly from Thailand and California and the garden of Vahn’s stepmother in Tennessee.

“We are crazy because I pay a lot more,” Mam said. “But you can taste it. If it’s not good, how am I going to sell it to the customers? … We don’t look at the trailer like we are taking people’s money. We value quality food and quality relationships. … I don’t feel like I’m cooking for customers; I feel like I’m cooking for my own friends and family and I love to make people happy.”

Thai Zap is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from March to November. “To go” orders cannot be accommodated because they don’t have space, equipment or time{span class=”LrzXr zdqRlf kno-fv”}. The phone number is {span class=”LrzXr zdqRlf kno-fv”}(208) 589-2258. {/span}{/span}More information on Thai Zap can be found on Facebook.