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By Michael Granberry
IN West Plano Special Magazine
a special publication of the Dallas Morning News
November 2006

Our new Wal-Mart is to West Plano what the Cafe Select was to Paris in The Sun Also Rises.

What am I, nuts? No, listen up, it's true. Or as Lili Von Shtupp cooed in Blazing Saddles, "It's twoo, it's twoo!"

Corporate executives, college students, pro athletes and busy moms are flocking to a cool little corner of our state-of-the-art Wal-Mart, which only means it's fancier than your average Wal-Mart or Lili Von Shtupp.

They're heading there in droves to take advantage of a new and increasingly popular phenomenon: Wi-Fi. Specifically, free Wi-Fi.

Yep, it's a cyber oasis at the West Plano Wal-Mart. which sprawls in all of its institutional glory near the corner of West Park Boulevard and the Tollway. The cyber corner goes by the name of Kicks Coffee Cafe, which isn't owned by Wal-Mart; it merely leases space from its big-box landlord.

Since opening last March, Kicks has become quite a kick with the locals. You can go there on Sundays and watch the Cowboys on 42-inch high-definition plasma screens while checking play-by-play statistics via the high-speed Internet connection being fed to your laptop or Blackberry.

EVERYDAY PEOPLE

Bit it's the clientele that I find the biggest kick.

"Oh man, it ranges from teenagers to the middle-aged to what I call 'soho' - the happily self-employed," says Sokhon Mam, 30, the manager of Kicks Coffee Cafe.

Kicks is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., but because Wal-Mart never closes, Kick's dreams of extending its own Wi-Fi-driven hours to the same 24/7 regimen. No question the need is there, says Sokhon, who cites a far more practical problem that keeps it from happening:

It's easier finding customers willing to show up at 3 a.m. than it is finding the personnel willing to wait on them

"I have one guy who comes in with two computers and a printer!" says Sokhon. "he's not the only one who makes this his home office, but we don't mind."

Kick's has a teen-age client who wanders in, armed with an X-Box. He uses free Wi-Fi to play X-Box games over the Internet, prompting Sokon's latest notion: He wants Kick's to stage its own video-game tournament using the John Madden football game as catnip for luring the "the younger crowd."

Kicks isn't just a place to drink coffee or surf the Web, it's a great place to sit. It can accomodate 55 customers, who lounge on two sofas, four recliners and two leather chairs or at nine dining tables. The Kick's crowd sips sodas, smoothies, coffee, expresso, lattes and hot chocolate and munches on muffins, cookies, cakes and even burgers or breakfast.

To read the full article click here.

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