Lauren Nolan

Wanpen Cline arrives at the restaurant ready to start her work day. Her last shift ended just four hours ago, at 6:30 a.m. It wasn&#8217;t an unusually long day. She does this seven days a week. Nobody makes her. It&#8217;s her restaurant.
Wanpen Thai &#038; Chinese Restaurant was her dream since she discovered a love for cooking in her 20s.
&#8220;You have to put your heart in it,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Your light, your soul, your heart in what you want to do.&#8221;
Wanpen, 60, is from Thailand and was living in Bangkok when she met and fell in love with an American soldier, Glenn Cline. They moved to Lexington in 1977, and then to Berea in 1986 because there was no Thai restaurant there.
Her husband helped her run the restaurant for many years. Since Glenn died last year, Wanpen does most of the work herself. She buys, prepares and cooks all of the food, runs the register and handles the paperwork. Her only employees are servers, who alternate shifts.
&#8220;I never let a minute go for nothing,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I work every minute.&#8221;
Wanpen&#8217;s restaurant is her pride and joy. Visitors see evidence of her Thai heritage in the restaurant&#8217;s decorations.
The restaurant requires a lot of hard work, and the family doesn&#8217;t make a lot of money from it. But one of the most important things to Wanpen is that her customers are full and happy when they leave.
&#8220;You do the best you can,&#8221; she says. &#8220;You do that, and everything changes.&#8221;
Her work ethic and love of sharing her culture have made her a community icon.
&#8220;She makes you feel like you&#8217;re at home,&#8221; said Bob Amburgey, 45, of Mount Vernon, a regular customer.
Wanpen gets a lot of pleasure from seeing multi-generation families in her restaurant, enjoying her food.
&#8220;She loves the people,&#8221; says her son, Ta Cline. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just about the passion of cooking. The reward is having those three or four generations.&#8221;

The spice of her life