Story By Diana Vallette • Photos By Dennis Thibodeaux
Before he was in the kitchen at Thai Lake Charles, Jet Keo was a monk.
These days, before he fires up the wok for the lunch crowd, he is up at 7:30 am and headed to the gym. It’s part of his practice. “It keeps me sane,” he says. “If I don’t work out and it’s a busy day, I’m not a happy person.”
An hour later, he’s showered and in the kitchen at Thai Lake Charles ready to get to work behind three of the restaurant’s five woks.
Keo didn’t grow up planning to run a restaurant. He was born in California and then spent the first 18 years of his life in Minnesota before moving south to Louisiana with the majority of his family. The group lived in Lafayette and joined a tight-knit Lao and Thai community. His attended UL-L, majoring in accounting before changing course and graduating in industrial technology. “I get bored easily,” he admits. “I like to move around.”
He worked everywhere while in school: AmeriCorps, an alligator processing plant, Abercrombie & Fitch. His mother and sister opened Bangkok Thai in Lafayette, what Jet affectionately calls “the mama shop.” The restaurant grew into a local favorite, with many customers driving in from Lake Charles.
In Keo’s culture, young men often ordain as Buddhist monks to honor their parents. It’s typically a short commitment, sometimes only a month. Keo stayed for three years.
What started as “just one month” stretched longer and longer. Three months. A year. Then two. Then three. Life inside the monastery was like you’d expect: quiet. His days were filled with meditation, prayer and service. “It was peaceful,” he says. “You don’t worry about the outside world. You just wake up, meditate and help the community.”
He became a bridge between the monastery and the local Lao and Thai population, translating when necessary, helping elders navigate paperwork and offering guidance.
“They always knew where to find me,” he says. “So I became the go-to guy.” The biggest lesson he learned from that time? Peace. “My mind used to be all over the place,” he says. “Monkey mind, we call it. After, I was calmer and more patient.” It’s a skill that would later serve him well. When Thai Lake Charles first opened he found himself juggling woks and a line out the door.
Eventually, he felt finished with monk life. “It was just … time,” he says. “Time to come back to regular life.” When he left the monastery, Keo stepped into Bangkok Thai as a server. “I’d never served before,” he says. “But it was on my bucket list.” The restaurant was busy and demanding. He loved it. “When we weren’t busy, I’d just jump back in the kitchen and ask to help cook” he says. “I just wanted to learn everything.”
There was no formal training and no recipe binders. Thai cooking, especially the way his family does it, is feel-based. “You can use the same scoop, the same sauce, everything the same,” he says. “But it’ll still taste different depending on who cooks it. It’s energy.”
It was a natural progression for Keo. He grew up watching his parents cook authentic meals every single day — fried fish patties, sour bamboo soup. That foundation, paired with hands-on experience in the restaurant, became his education. In September 2023, the family opened Thai Lake Charles. While the Lafayette location is full-service, this one is built for smaller crowds and speed. “We wanted it to be more lunch-friendly,” he says. “People here are working. They don’t always have time for a long sit-down.”
The menu stays consistent with Bangkok Thai — partly for customer favorites, partly to keep things simple when staff rotate between locations. “We didn’t know what to expect when we first opened,” he says. “I was getting here at 9 am and leaving at 1 in the morning.” In the first month, Keo lost nearly 20 pounds. Now things are steadier.
A typical day still stretches long — often until 9:30 at night — but it’s sustainable. Keo and his tight-knit team in the kitchen love cooking for the restaurant’s regulars. He says he can usually tell who’s inside just based on the orders that come in. He’ll pop his head out of the kitchen and say hi.
“Are you changing it up?” he asked one regular recently. She’d slightly altered her order. Every other time she ordered her dishes “Thai hot” – all of the dishes are served at varying degrees of spiciness. Turns out she’d just made an error. Luckily, Keo caught it.
“It’s crazy in here sometimes,” he says. “But you just stay on the ball.” He says one challenge remains constant: educating Southwest Louisiana. “A lot of people think all Asian food is the same,” he says. “They’ll ask if we’re serving Chinese food.” The team is always glad to guide first-timers. They’ll walk you through the process.
He offers our readers this advice: “Start with Pad Thai — the national dish of Thailand. Rice noodles. Tamarind. Sweet, savory, balanced.” Or, maybe try Keo’s personal favorite, Pad Woon Sen, made with delicate glass noodles from mung beans, loaded with vegetables and tossed in a savory soy-based sauce. (I have to share with our readers that during our photo shoot I was able to sample several of Thai Lake Charles’ dishes, and this one was also my personal favorite.)
Nearly everything in the restaurant is made from scratch, including their curry pastes. Many dishes can be made vegan or gluten-free. “It’s fresh. It’s herby. It’s flavorful,” he says. “That’s Thai food.”
“I miss the peace of the monastery sometimes,” he says. “But cooking —it’s kind of peaceful, too.”
Standing in front of the wok, moving instinctively, feeding people food that tastes like his childhood — that’s his meditation now.
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