Migrant Worker

Everyone in Kunming goes to Salvadors a lot. They’ve got a pretty decent business going, built on the fact that they take good care of their staff so there is very little turnover, and thus, the service doesn’t suck. Also the ice cream is excellent, as in, if I were eating this in a boutique ice cream shop in the US, I wouldn’t be disappointed. Anyway, I was impressed to see this article from CNN… I wonder who covered this and why anyone from CNN — or even a freelancer— was down here in Kunming looking at businesses.

The guys who own Salvadors have done a great job leveraging their “restaurant” into a broader range of businesses, including selling packaged coffee (Starbucks style) and logo T-shirts (gotta get me one of those). Dunno if the article mentions this, but last I heard, the guys were looking into expanding to new locations around China. Great idea, but why would anyone want to leave Kunming?

One gap that needs to be filled here is a creative tour/trekking service based near Kunming… almost everyone on their way to Vietnam/Laos or Northwest Yunnan/Tibet is stuck here for a couple days twiddling their thumbs. Meimei’s Cafe (which may or may not still exist, since the entire city block it occupies in Jinghong was scheduled for demolition) used to do a good job of this for backpackers in Xishuangbanna. I have often wondered if Salvadors could do the same. I think the biggest catch would be figuring out cool stuff to do within a couple hours’ drive of Kunming.