'Well, what'll it be now, Pilgrim?'

A lifelong John Wayne fan, Kruth Sombutmai's life reads a bit like a movie script. So it's on to the next act.

By ROCHELLE RUNAS, Times Correspondent
Published August 9, 2007

Kruth Sombutmai, originally from Chiang Mai Province, Thailand, he now lives in Zephyrhills and owns Hill's Grocery and Coffee Shop in Zephyrhills.
	[Mike Pease | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Mike Pease | Times] Kruth Sombutmai checks over the salad bar at his restaurant. Sombutmai has owned Hill's Grocery and Coffee Shop in Zephyrhills for years and is famous for his love of John Wayne, whose image is plastered on the walls of the popular eatery. » If you go Hill's Grocery and Coffee Shop 34505 S.R. 54 Zephyrhills, FL 33541 Regular Favorites $2.79 Eye Opener Breakfast 2 eggs, 2 strips bacon or sausage, toast, coffee $4.99 All You Can Eat Fish Fry Fridays

ZEPHYRHILLS

Kruth Sombutmai has found his American dream - be your own boss and pay homage to the Duke.

Inside Hill's Coffee Shop, Sombutmai does both. He serves up eggs and bacon and grits with a smile to his customers - regulars, mostly - who sit amid pictures and posters and statues of John Wayne.

"John Wayne very important to my life," said Sombutmai, 66. "He is my American dream. When we had opportunity to open this place, thought I would give tribute to him."

To hear him tell it, Sombutmai is at a pit stop in the journey that started in the mountains of Thailand and continued through his years as a Buddhist monk and eventually led him to Hill's.

Soon, though, it will be time for another departure. Sombutmai will close the iconic restaurant and store sometime within the next year to make way for a CVS, scattering his regulars to the winds.

"We'll have to find someone else to aggravate," said longtime regular Wallace Angelo of Zephyrhills.

"Other than that, we don't know," said his wife, Esme Angelo.

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Sombutmai saw Wayne for the first time in 1947 in a remote mountain village in Northern Thailand. Much like an ice cream truck would come around, a "movie truck" would visit his village with a projector and screen.

"All the people heard it," said Sombutmai. "Tonight, cowboy movie!"

At age 6, Sombutmai watched Angel and the Badman, dubbed in Thai. From then on, he was hooked on all things John Wayne.

"When you see him get off the horse, he's very smart, tall man, talks with deep voice," said Sombutmai, puffing his chest and swaying his shoulders. "Ever since, I make a wish to see John Wayne in America."

But Sombutmai had a few stops to make in his journey, starting with a long career in Buddhism.

A novice at 13, Sombutmai became a monk at 20. He studied Buddhism at universities in Thailand and India and got a masters in sociology and philosophy. He taught college in Thailand and was principle of his village's middle school and temple.

He made it to America in 1970 traveling as a missionary to set up a temple in the Bronx. Shortly after, at age 36 and after 23 years of practice, Sombutmai decided to give up his monastic calling.

"I wanted a family life," said Sombutmai. "I wanted my own business. The food business was going to be my new journey."

He moved to Long Beach, Calif., and learned the restaurant business from the ground up. He washed dishes in Italian restaurants, cooked in seafood restaurants. He married Su-ang, a Thai nurse he met while cooking for a hospital. The couple had two boys, Chut and Shawn.

During his free time, Sombutmai would often visit the John Wayne statue outside John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif.

Sombutmai owned several restaurants and one grocery store over 15 years in California, but never the land, Sombutmai is quick to point out.

"Property is so expensive there. I wanted my own store and restaurant, together on my own land."

In the late 1980s he found out from friends in Plant City that James Monroe Hill, founder and owner of Hill's Grocery since 1938, was planning to retire.

Sombutmai bought the grocery in 1990. He sold cold sandwiches while keeping his eye on the video store next door, waiting for it to close.

Seven years later, it did. Sombutmai knocked down part of the grocery store wall leading to his new dining room, which he called Hill's Coffee Shop.

He owned only one picture of John Wayne and hung it on the wall. The rest of the memorabilia came as gifts from customers.

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Regulars George Hill (no relation to James Hill), the Angelos, Ardeth Balcato and Fran Drummond all agree that there's no other place like Hill's. They say the family atmosphere, cheap and tasty food is why people wait an hour and a half for a table and don't mind sitting with strangers.

"I don't make a lot but I gain just enough," said Sombutmai, who makes sure his customers, mostly seniors, can afford his meals.

"This is a family restaurant," said George Hill, 68, of Zephyrhills, who eats dinner there seven nights a week. "The reason you first come is not knowing anybody, until you come here. Then you come because you know everybody."

"And when our families are sick, Kruth packs extra food to take with us," said Esme Angelo, who has eaten breakfast here with husband Wallace every day for 11 years.

No one is sure what will happen next. The regulars may have to find new haunts. For his part, Sombutmai has some vague ideas about possibly opening another place. The John Wayne collection will be kept in storage until then, he said.

Wherever he ends up, Sombutmai will probably do things the same way, the right way, in a way that would the Duke proud.

"A man ought to do what he thinks is right," said Wayne in Hondo.

"Kruth is an honest man, sincere," said his wife Su-ang (known as Suzie at Hill's), a nurse at Dade City Hospital who for years made 3 a.m. fresh produce runs to downtown Tampa before her hospital shift.

And honesty is one of the things Sombutmai admires about John Wayne, who he never met. "If John Wayne was a Buddhist, he'd say 'always speak the truth.' "

"And a man that ain't honest, ain't nothing," said Wallace Angelo.

[Last modified August 8, 2007, 20:52:22]