WASSAIC — Husband-and-wife duo Arunee Pakaraphag and Jason Jeffords described the opening of their restaurant, Thai Baan, as almost coincidental.
Pakaraphag and Jeffords opened the restaurant last year after an offer from Tenmile Distillery co-owners Joel LeVangia and Eliza Dyson to occupy the distillery’s restaurant space for two years. The duo are now celebrating the start of their second summer with a refreshed menu that continues their commitment to homestyle Thai cooking.
While the space marks the couple’s first restaurant venture, both are career veterans of the hospitality industry who bonded over their shared passion for food and drink.
Jeffords managed sales in New York City for the distillery when he met Pakaraphag on Jan. 22, 2023, after connecting on a dating app.
“The way we met is not necessarily super special,” Jeffords said. “It just worked. That’s the special part.”
As their relationship blossomed, opportunities to cook began to emerge at the distillery when its regular kitchen crew went on vacation or traveled for events.
“It just turned out to be very successful,” Jeffords said. “Everybody loved it.”
Those events revealed a strong appetite for Thai cuisine in the region, leading to a two-year residency that’s currently set to end in February 2027.
The restaurant continues to see success after its first year, Jeffords said, attracting regulars from as far as an hour away. Jeffords attributes that success in part to the pair’s commitment to good hospitality and catering to the region’s tastes.
Part of that commitment was calibrating the spiciness of their dishes to the community. Jeffords said spiciness can be an obstacle for Thai cuisine in the U.S. Heat in dishes can be central to a meal’s flavor profile, Jeffords said, and some dishes don’t work as well without spice at all. But the staff will accommodate all diners, regardless of spice tolerance.
“We really dialed in the proper heat that the community can handle so we don’t blow too many people out,” Jeffords said. “We do get a lot of people who absolutely love super spicy food and they ask us for ‘Thai spicy.’”
Jeffords said he had actually been considering leaving behind the restaurant business to focus on liquor sales, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. So the pair packed up their belongings and moved to Millbrook to start the restaurant.
“It was a nice change,” Jeffords said. “We’re getting used to seeing the stars and laying out in the hammock.”
The move to Millbrook was a return to rural roots for both of them. Jeffords grew up in rural New York between Rochester and Buffalo. Pakaraphag grew up on a rice farm in northeast Thailand. Both said the Hudson Valley’s rural charm was a welcome change of pace after decades in bustling urban restaurants.
Jason Jeffords, left, and his wife, Arunee Pakaraphag, run Thai Baan together out of the Tenmile Distillery.Nathan Miller
Jeffords has 28 years in the hospitality and bartending industry under his belt, starting as a bartender at a restaurant in New York City when he was 22. Pakaraphag similarly started working as a bartender, but she transitioned to the kitchen as her passion for cooking grew.
“Cooking is actually more fun than anything else for me,” Pakaraphag said.
Pakaraphag’s career took her across the globe, beginning at a hotel in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, to cruise ships, London and eventually New York City.
But Thai Baan was Pakaraphag’s first opportunity to run her own kitchen and design a menu. She said she lacks formal chef training, and refuses to accept the label “chef” as a result.
“I never took a class, I never had a certificate,” Pakaraphag said. “I only learned through my experience.”
Despite the humility, Jeffords said his wife takes full ownership of the kitchen. “These are recipes that Arunee knows far better than me,” Jeffords said. “And they always taste great.”
Jeffords said the restaurant space inside the distillery presented some challenges that the pair had to adapt to. The previous regular crew didn’t utilize the kitchen inside, opting instead to cook out of an Airstream trailer and serve food outside exclusively. That choice was driven by necessity, Jeffords said, as the indoor space wasn’t climate controlled at the time.
But even with heating and air conditioning, temperatures in the large converted barn that the distillery and restaurant occupy can be challenging to control at times. On the hottest days, outside service is cancelled to keep inside temperatures comfortable for diners and waitstaff.
Another challenge is the distance from the kitchen to the dining room. A room full of stills and other liquor producing equipment separates the kitchen from the dining room and bar.
Patrons enjoy an early evening drink at the bar in the Tenmile Distillery on Friday, April 17. Nathan Miller
The space’s beauty outweighs the challenges, the couple said, praising distillery co-owner Eliza Dyson’s interior decorating.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” Jeffords said.
The interior space is complemented by a scenic view of the Oblong Valley south of Wassaic. Jeffords expects patio dining to open within a few weeks.
And along with patio dining will come a refreshed summer menu, Pakaraphag said, featuring dishes from across Thailand’s distinct regional cuisines.
On Friday nights, Jeffords roasts a whole chicken — soaked in coconut milk and Thai herbs — on a spit over a wood fire in the dining room’s hearth. Jeffords said the chicken is served with a papaya salad, rice and fresh vegetables.
“The best thing about it is when we’re cooking it, it makes the room smell so good,” Jeffords said.
Pakaraphag said authentically recreating the flavors of her home country has always driven her passion for cooking. That desire for authenticity began when she started cooking for herself after leaving home for Dubai, and it continues to factor into her dishes at Thai Baan.
Pakaraphag emphasizes traditional, homestyle recipes for her menus. She puts a focus on homemade touches, hand-rolling spring rolls and dumplings and bringing in her own homegrown vegetables and Thai herbs often.
The couple is so dedicated to authenticity that they make regular trips to New York City for specific ingredients that can’t be sourced from local vendors. The restaurant sources most ingredients from the area or even vegetables from Pakaraphag’s garden at her home in Millbrook.
“It’s a little bit different than how they would probably do it in Thailand,” Jeffords said. “But we’re able to get what we need to make sure the flavors would make any Thai person happy.”
Going into the restaurant’s second summer, Jeffords and Pakaraphag are looking toward the future. Jeffords said the duo is still unsure whether they will pursue an extended residency at the distillery or move Thai Baan to its own space.
“If it was an ideal situation we would try to go off on our own somewhere in the area,” Jeffords said. “But it’s really still left up in the air, to be determined.”
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Growing up in the Bronx, Hearn was captivated whenever she saw horses. Her grandfather, a Korean War veteran, had cared for military horses during the war. After returning home, he struggled with addiction, and the invisible wounds of military service. Through every difficult chapter of his life, however, one thing consistently brought him peace.
“Horses bring peace,” he told his granddaughter.
When Hearn was 11, after years apart, Hearn and her grandfather began spending weekends riding together. Less than a year later, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before he died, he asked family members to help buy Hearn’s first horse — a stubborn paint horse that bit, kicked and frequently threw her off. She wanted to sell him. Her father refused.
“Every life has value,” he told her.
Looking back, Hearn says that lesson became the foundation of everything she would later build.
What began as a boarding stable in 2003 took a different direction after the Dutchess County SPCA asked Hearn to care for horses seized in cruelty cases. She soon realized that although Dutchess County had one of New York’s largest horse populations, there was no dedicated nonprofit equipped to care for neglected and abused horses. Lucky Orphans officially became a nonprofit in 2008.
Some of the more than 40 horses at Lucky OrphansProvided
Today, Hearn is quick to point out that Lucky Orphans is not simply a rescue.
“We’re a sanctuary,” she said.
Many of the more than 40 horses living there arrive with broken bones, chronic illnesses, heart conditions, missing eyes or other injuries that make them unsuitable for riding or adoption. Rather than rehabilitating and rehoming them, Lucky Orphans makes a lifetime commitment to every horse.
In 2013, Hearn became certified in equine-assisted psychotherapy, combining her lifelong relationship with horses and the lessons she learned from her grandfather to create programs for veterans, trauma survivors, children and families facing emotional challenges. The transformations she witnesses continue to surprise her. She recalls one woman who arrived convinced she would not fit in with a group of strangers. During the session, a horse quietly chose to follow her without a rope or commands. For the first time in years, the woman said she felt truly seen.
Another memory has stayed with Hearn ever since. A teenager in a juvenile probation program, wearing an ankle monitor and struggling with anger, entered a round pen with a horse. As his frustration grew, the horse moved farther away. When he finally calmed himself, the horse walked directly toward him and rested its head against his chest.
“I told him, ‘If you can control your energy, you can control the world around you,’” Hearn said.
Stories like these sustain her through the difficult realities of running a nonprofit. Operating the sanctuary costs roughly $52,000 each month, and Hearn lives on the property, where the work never truly ends. Veterinary bills, staffing, fundraising and the daily care of dozens of horses are constant concerns. Then someone returns years later and tells her that the horses changed their child’s life.
“That’s why I keep going,” she said.
Looking ahead, Hearn hopes more people discover what makes Lucky Orphans unique. The organization is expanding its community programming with educational visits, yoga sessions, horse encounters, volunteer opportunities and family events designed to reconnect people with horses and with one another.
Her vision is simple: to create a place where people slow down, reconnect and remember something modern life often makes us forget. If horses could speak, Hearn believes they would offer just one piece of advice.
“They’d tell us to slow down,” she said.
After spending an afternoon at Lucky Orphans, it’s hard to disagree.
For more information or to plan a visit, go to luckyorphans.org
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