"I never get tired of it, because I make myself something different every day," says Khoubiar, who with his wife, Jhanik, took over the management of the Meridian Avenue pizza parlor on Jan. 1.

The Khoubiars decided to buy the restaurant after George was laid off last year from Applied Materials, where he worked for 15 years as a mechanical engineer.

"I decided I wanted to work for myself," George says. "I did want to go with a franchise, and this restaurant has been established for over 30 years."

To help him gain an understanding of the finer points of the pizza business, Straw Hat's corporate office showed George how to make the pies and deal with the customers. He's passing this training along to his wife.

"There are recipe books we have to use and marketing schemes we have to follow," George says. "Basically, we have to go by the [franchise] rules."

The training paid off. "When I opened the doors for the first time, I knew what I'd run into sooner or later," he says.

Since Straw Hat has been feeding Willow Glen residents for three decades, the Khoubiars have run into several generations of longtime customers.

"People tell me, 'We used to come here 25 years ago when my kid was 2 years old,'" George says.

The pizza parlor has long been a gathering place for local sports leagues, schools and churches, which often book the banquet room for special occasions. The Khoubiars are continuing Straw Hat's established entertainment lineup, including banjo music on Tuesday nights and belly-dancing on Friday nights.

Since the Willow Glen restaurant is Straw Hat's only San Jose location, the Khoubiars frequently get phone calls from pizza lovers seeking deliveries outside Willow Glen's borders. But the Khoubiars—who live in Milpitas, home of the only other Silicon Valley Straw Hat—are bound by their franchise agreement to keep their pizzas within a three-mile radius of the restaurant.

The Khoubiars are putting in 10 to 12 hours a day to keep their restaurant up and running. Until recently, they were working seven days a week; now they take Mondays off.

Despite this demanding schedule, George says, "This is my last job until I retire."

And he adds, "In a corporate environment, you know you're getting paid every other week, but in six months you might not have a job. Here you'll always have a job, but there's a different kind of pressure."

Working for yourself, the pressure is not the same, says George, adding, "You have the freedom of working for yourself, so I feel safer here than working for a corporation. The economy's not getting better. You have to be creative to make money."

Like her husband, Jhanik Khoubiar was affected by the economic downturn. As more working parents were laid off, business at her daycare center began slipping. Last month, Jhanik decided to close down the center and devote herself to the restaurant full time.

"She can concentrate here and make it a family restaurant," her husband says.

Jhanik says dealing with Straw Hat customers is a lot different than dealing with her daycare clients.

"When people come in the morning, they leave the baby. When they come to pick them up, we talk about what the baby ate, how the baby slept," she says of her former profession.

At Straw Hat, Jhanik says, customers' needs are a bit broader. "Now I understand what good service is," she adds. "I'm trying to do what's best for all customers, not just one or two."

Straw Hat Pizza is located at 1535 Meridian Ave. For more information, call 408.266.3344.