Maggie and Utdam Thach own and operate the Happy Sunshine food truck. They conduct their business on Drexel University’s campus. | Photography by Albert Yee
By Constance Garcia-Barrio
Who would have guessed that you could cook up peace with a hot griddle and a splash of oil? Utdam Thach and his wife, Maggie, both 53, from Cambodia, serve up toothsome sandwiches with a side of joy at the Happy Sunshine Food Truck on Drexel University’s campus.
“They always have a smile for you,” says Brian Delose, a Drexel freshman, majoring in finance. “After a while, they know what you like and start cooking it when they see you coming.” He particularly enjoys their sandwiches and bucket iced tea.
Thach has traveled light-years in outlook and miles to land on this busy corner. “I was a soldier in Cambodia in the ’80s, fighting the Khmer Rouge,” he says, speaking of the regime said to have killed more than a million Cambodians. “My father, mother, sisters, brother and I fled to Thailand. An American organization brought us to the United States in 1995.”
Thach’s family settled in Philly, but Thach, a restless young man then, bounced around. “I stayed in New York for six months, then Connecticut for 13 months, then, Lowell [Massachusetts],” says Thach, who’d learned some English in Thailand. “I don’t have studies or a trade, so I work[ed] with my hands. I was a dishwasher in Japanese and Chinese restaurants. I made money under the table.”
When friends told Thach about a good job in this area, he moved back to Philly. “I worked in a diaper factory in King of Prussia,” he says. “I started out at $13 an hour, but things slowed down. They said they would pay me $10 an hour, or they would give me papers to collect unemployment [compensation].”
Thach took the compensation but felt unmoored.
“I was depressed,” he says. “I had just a little money, and I was gambling. I was like a homeless person.”
But he knew where to turn for help among Philly’s approximately 12,500 Cambodians in the early 2000s.
“I went to the [Cambodian] Buddhist temple. They feed you, and you help the monks and sleep on benches in the temple,” he says, explaining how he got by. “The temple used to be on Second Street, but neighbors didn’t like the festivals. Too much noise. Now there’s a big temple [in West Philadelphia].”
The temple’s help exceeded Thach’s wildest dreams.
“I met Maggie there,” he says, smiling at the attractive woman working alongside him in the truck. “She straightened out my life. I’m lucky to find her.” Thach and Maggie married in 2008. “With honesty, truth and respect, you have a good marriage,” he says.
Two years into their marriage, Thach and Maggie heard about a food truck for sale. “It cost $48,000, a good price, but the truck needed work,” he says. “We had to fix the refrigerator, broken pipes, the fan on top and other things.”
The truck made the most of their abilities. They both have stamina, and Thach had acquired handyman know-how over the years. Something else worked in his favor. On a scale of 1 to 10, his people skills rate a 12. He brims with so much goodwill that it raises the ambient temperature by a good 5 degrees. “I talk, talk, talk, bring in customers,” he says.
It’s usually Maggie at the griddle. She gained cooking skills at a gourmet restaurant, Thach says, and later helped a friend who had a food truck, so she had experience preparing American breakfast and lunch sandwiches.
They balanced diplomacy and profits in setting their prices.
“Before we opened for business, we went around to see how much other trucks were charging,” Thach says. “If you undercut other trucks, it can make bad feelings. Maybe you come back one morning and find your truck damaged.”
Thanks, in part, due to its low prices, Happy Sunshine has a loyal following.
“Look at the size of this steak sandwich,” Schnik Beej, a marketing major, says. “It’s $4.50 and enough for two people.” A pepper, egg and cheese sandwich goes for $2.25, and hash browns, and bacon, egg and cheese costs $3.50.
Maggie and Thach have a grueling schedule. “We get up at 3:40 a.m.—okay, sometimes we oversleep until 4 a.m.—then we load the car and drive here from the Northeast,” he says. “We’re here by 5 a.m., and we open at 6 a.m.,” which helps Happy Sunshine draw early risers, Thach says. “We close at 3 p.m., but we don’t go right home. You have to clean the griddle and do other things to be ready for the next day. It takes an hour.”
“Vacation” seems to be a foreign word to Thach. “What vacation?” he says. He and Maggie may have enough downtime to see family members living 10 minutes from their home, and occasionally Maggie does traditional sewing she learned from her mother and aunt.
Thach and Maggie have stiff competition with a slew of other trucks like Dos Hermanos Tacos, Le Dominique Creperie and a halal food truck, yet Happy Sunshine stands out for more than its canary color. (“That’s the color of peace,” Thach says.) “You have to give respect,” and now and then something more concrete. For regular customers, Thach sometimes throws in a free soda or bag of chips.
But Happy Sunshine’s success stands on more than demeanor. For one thing, Maggie has her secret sauces and recipes. “She’ll go to restaurants and try something, then come back and make her own [version of it],” Thach says.
However, Maggie’s cooking includes an even more elusive ingredient. “Buddhism teaches you to be peaceful,” Thach says. “If you have a peaceful heart, you have a peaceful family, then a peaceful community. We put peace in our food.”
