Thai immigrant opens restaurant in Holden

HOLDEN — When Somjit Wetherbee — who owns Siam 9 Thai Cuisine on 456 Main St. with her daughter — arrived in the region from Thailand 20 years ago, she found few to none Thai restaurants, thus spurring her idea of opening an eatery offering authentic Thai food which came to fruition on Christmas 2017. 

Wetherbee said she has always been in love with cooking and the idea of starting her own business. In Thailand, she was a chef at a popular restaurant, Sunit Golf, in the country’s capital city of Bangkok for seven years. 

Wetherbee’s delightful recipes not only filled stomachs of local residents, but royalty as well, as the king’s palace regularly ordered food from the restaurant, she said. 

In 2003, a year after Wetherbee married her American husband, she and her daughter immigrated to the U.S. She was 31 then, and her daughter was 11.