At 2 p.m. he'll turn around and drive straight to Cupertino—not to his house, to bed, but to his restaurant, Olarn Thai Cuisine, to help his wife, Lawan, set up for the night. By 5 or 6 p.m. he'll catch a break—it just might last if there aren't too many customers and if Lawan doesn't need his help. A typical workday for Rachogan is, at best, 12 hours long, usually more.

Having opened his restaurant in June 2002, during one of the Silicon Valley's worst recessions in decades, Rachogan, 54, is doing what he can just to get by.

It's not the kind of life he bargained for. At 17 Rachogan left his native Thailand to attend Poona University in India, set on being a doctor. Later he changed his major to economics, thinking of becoming a professor. But after earning a master's degree from the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco and getting married, practical needs won over. He'd worked in the restaurant business since arriving in the United States; now he needed to support his family and get a green card, bring in a steady income. His days in academia would be put off indefinitely.

What followed were several high-ranking chef positions with major corporations like the Hyatt and the Commodore Cruise lines. He opened a succession of restaurants around the East Bay before coming south to reap the rewards of Silicon Valley's tech boom.

"We heard that Silicon Valley was a good place to have a business, and so I came and looked," Rachogan says. "I fell in love with this place," he says, smiling as he gestures to his restaurant. Proudly he points out the elaborate woodcarvings that decorate the walls, art that he has personally selected and brought back from Thailand to share with his customers.

On a recent Sunday night couples and small groups of friends slowly fill the restaurant's rows of white-linened tables and old-fashioned bistro chairs. Families gather in the half of the room decorated in the khuntok style, with bright, patterned floor pillows grouped around low tables—a traditional setting for a Northern Thai meal that ceased as custom in the early part of the last century but is still reenacted in the occasional restaurant or theatrical show.

"It's something you don't see around," Rachogan says of the khuntok style. "It's very comfortable. People sit there for hours and hours. Some people will stay until midnight. But I tell them, 'You can sit as long as you want.' "

Being Sunday, he'll be cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom, as he does every week. "Sunday is my cleaning up day," he says with a smile.

And in the morning he'll be up again before the sun, cruising down a nearly empty highway that's become even emptier since the tech economy crashed two years ago, leaving thousands unemployed. Despite his grueling work day, Rachogan is grateful he's got his job at the Mark Hopkins, which provides health insurance. He's got diabetes, and his medical costs run nearly $1,000 month. Though business at the Olarn is slowly picking up, it's not enough to justify quitting his job at the hotel.

"I'm tired," he admits, "but what can we do?"