“Hello, girlfriend!”

Aoy Lachapelle’s greeting is typically the first thing you hear when stepping into her restaurant, the Rice Paddy, but who holds the charismatic voice on the other side of the line when you call to place an order?

Josh Glomb, 32, works alongside Lachapelle to make and serve delicious Thai cuisine each day. His job at the Rice Paddy  started with an old friend and some cabbage. Glomb had a friend out West named Johnny Utah. He previously worked at the Rice Paddy and gave Josh a tip on how to get a job at the Thai restaurant, he said.

“Take some cabbage to Aoy, and she’ll probably give you a job,” Glomb said. That’s all it took to become one half of an important duo here in the Marquette food scene.Glomb has worked beside Aoy for almost 10 years now, he said. The two work every day except for Saturday when the restaurant is closed.
“If Aoy’s working, I’m working,” said Glomb.

Glomb, originally from the Detroit area, moved to Marquette to attend Northern Michigan University. He ate at The Rice Paddy frequently before becoming employed there.

“She [Aoy] didn’t really like me at first because all I ate was spring rolls, wontons, and the hot and sour soup,” Glomb said. “I never ordered a meal,” he added.

This was back around the time when Aoy was extremely busy because it was just her running the restaurant, Glomb said.

“When she got really busy, she would unplug the phone and wait and wait to plug it back in and take more orders,” said Glomb. Things are still quite crazy at the Rice Paddy with the two of them due to the restaurant’s popularity, he added.
Lachapelle and Glomb have become quite the pair from working everyday together.

“She took me to Thailand to meet her family,”  Glomb said. Lachapelle uses the tips they receive at the Rice Paddy to help the children of need in her village in Thailand. “I got to be a part of that this year,” Glomb said.
Besides getting to be a part of Lachapelle’s work with the children, Glomb enjoyed visiting the temples and Buddhas in Thailand and morning walks with Lachapelle’s son Charlie, he said.
Although he never had any formal training, Glomb has been working in kitchens his whole life, he said.
“This is all Aoy’s food, but we do some fun stuff like curry fried rice burritos and gluten free egg rolls because I’m gluten free,” said Glomb. He has some favorite dishes of Aoy’s though that aren’t included on the menu. “My favorite is probably the pineapple curry or the street noodle,”  Glomb said. His favorite part about working at the Rice Paddy though is the after hours, he said.
“After we close, we just have our talks about life and people,” said Glomb.