The Kinley Story

Here’s the short version.

After we left the boarding school in Kingsville, TX we headed north towards San Antonio.  We intended to visit some of the people we had met in Spring Branch and then head north toward Austin or College Station, the homes of Texas’ largest universities.

When we got to San Antonio, Melissa suddenly got the urge to go to El Paso, TX.  So we did.

When we arrived in El Paso three days later, I had an unquenchable urge to find a coffee shop so that we could figure out what to do next.

The first coffee shop we found was near the University of Texas at El Paso, enter Kinley.

Kinley, as you’ve probably guessed, is the owner of Kinley’s House, the finest coffee and tea shop in the great state of Texas.

Skip some details: he somewhat reluctantly agreed to let me build him a website, and said that I had better impress him.

We made camp at a cheap motel down the road.  Kinley gave us a “VIP” card so that we could eat and drink at his coffee shop as much as we wanted as long as we were working.

Over the next week Kinley took us out to eat with him about a million times, and even let us sleep at his apartment for two nights.

The man knows hundreds of people by name.  He even knew most of the employees at Costco.

A lot of companies say that customer service is their number one priority.  But really, money is the number on priority and good customer service is just a way to get there.

From what we observed, Kinley actually believes that taking care of customers and producing the best product possible are the most important things.  Those two qualities just so happen to lead to good business, but I think money is an afterthought on Kinley’s part.

There are many things that I don’t understand about Kinley.  So it goes.

But I do understand that he is a Christian who believes that his place in life is to provide a safe, positive atmosphere for the students and people of El Paso where someone knows their name.  A place where someone knows their name because they actually care, not as part of some grand networking business scheme.

Kinley is a Christian who runs a business that puts integrity and love ahead of money.

The end of the story goes like this:  thanks to the provision of God we stayed in El Paso for nine days and spent a total of $0.  We only bought one meal because we wanted to try Carl’s Jr. (thank you Idiocracy).

We learned so much about valuing all of the people that we come into contact with, and witnessed a fine example of Christian love.

In return, Kinley’s House Coffee & Teas now has a website and I think we boggled Kinley’s mind a little bit.

We’ll miss that self-described “Crazy Chinaman”, but we won’t forget him.

Comments

Very cool story…

love the pic… rocking the TwoThieves shirt!!