Where is the King of the Grill?

Photo Credit: Djemima Duvernat

For years, if you wanted a good meal and an even better conversation at the marketplace, you looked for one man and one man only. He knew your name before you told him twice. He made eye contact with you and offered you his best smile. He never let you walk away without a "good morning" or a "smile, you might make someone else's day."

He was the highlight of a lot of the students' days. They felt comfortable enough to bring their struggles and worries to him because they knew he would know how to help them. Who would have thought that such a relationship would bloom between the student body and a man behind the grill at the marketplace.

Students called him the King of the Grill.

Then, he disappeared. Where did the King of the Grill go? Students who had built their routine around stopping by his line were asking each other the same question: what happened to Kenny?

So, where did Kenny go?

Kenny Langston is 62, and before this campus knew him, he spent a couple of years working the grill at Quinnipiac University. Where he built a reputation the same way he built it here: one plate, one conversation, one smile at a time. Kenny has been working the grill for 15 years as King.

Where did the nickname come from?

"I try to do the best I can, and I am going to give them the best quality of food and services at the same time," he said.

It was not a name he claimed for himself; it was something the students felt he deserved.

So why did he leave the Marketplace, a place where so many students first experienced him?

The choice nobody saw coming.

"It is not like management ran me away or nothing," Kenny said. "It's a choice I made, and I feel like now it was the right choice." Students say that Kenny’s enthusiasm behind the grill is what makes them feel so connected to him. He reaches the student where they are and makes sure they feel a little home away from home. Kenny made a choice that he feared would take away his interactions with the students. Little did he know the impact he had on the student could not be erased so easily.

Every year, after summer break, staff get the option to bid on open positions by seniority. When a coworker left her post at Smooth Haven for a job at Dunkin' Donuts, she came straight to Kenny. She believed that he would be great for the post and still have the same interaction with the students.

The real reason came down to something quite simple: Sundays. The Marketplace didn't give him weekends off, and Sunday was the one day he wanted to protect, for time with his wife, and time for the two of them to attend car shows as one of his favorite things in the world. Since she works with at-risk youth during the week.

"That's my time," he said. "I wanna spend it with my wife."

It wasn't burnout. It wasn't a falling out. It was a 62-year-old man choosing his marriage over convenience or money and trusting that the students who mattered to him would find him again.

What Kenny was really afraid of?

If there was one thing Kenny said he feared about the move, it wasn't losing the job. It was losing the freshmen.

"I was afraid I would not be able to deal with the freshmen," he said. During his years at the marketplace, he'd made it his mission to be an anchor for students in their hardest stretch. The first few homesick weeks of college, far from everything familiar.

"A lot of them wanted to give up," he said. "I just feel like sometimes God puts certain people in certain places for a reason."

He didn't need to worry for long. Students followed him.

"A lot of them come up here; they already know me," Kenny said. "They say, 'I know you already, you're Kenny.' 'Cause you're all over Instagram."

More than a paycheck.

Kenny's connection to students didn't start as a job requirement; it started with his own kids, now grown, and what he wished someone had done for them when they left for college. Going to school away from home can be terrifying at times. There is no guarantee that you will be at home or that you will find your niche. Kenny knew that, and he sought to make sure that every student who showed up at his grill would walk away with a real smile on their face and the realization that maybe just maybe someone was looking out for them.

"I notice, even if you watch the news, it bothers me that colleges, schools, and churches are where your kids are supposed to be safe," he said. "That's where they go through so much."

At his previous job, working closely with student-athletes, he saw how much pain could hide behind a scholarship. Especially for students who have no choice but to perform for said scholarship. Students, whether they are athletes or not, all struggle with different issues such as homesickness, feeling overwhelmed, and becoming adults. Kenny stepped up and refused to let the student go through any of it alone. He was not told to do so; he chose to because he believed students matter.

"A lot of them was going through a lot of things, losing family members and friends back home, and no one really knew what they were going through mentally," he said. "They could come to me and talk to me about anything, and I'm gonna give them the best advice that I could give them. I look at all of y'all like I look at my kids." There is something about hearing something like that from someone you see everyday and who puts a smile on your face everyday. Parents love their children a lot. In other words Kenny is expressing his love to all of the students he has been interacting with over the years.

He was direct about what the job actually means to him. "It's more than just a check for me," he said. "Some people get a check and don't do their job,” he said. My father always told me: if you enjoy what you're doing, it never feels like work."

In the end, Kenny says he was led to his new job.

"I always put God first," he said. "I believe God made this move for me." He was caring for his mother before she passed away in March. "I refused to let her go into homes," he said. "Who's gonna show my mother love more than mine?"

The motto.

As for his legacy, Kenny is clear.

"Just smile and make someone else's day," he said. "It's not always about you. If you make someone else happy, that's gonna make you happy; it's not about them making you happy." He has another line he repeats often, one he calls his personal motto: "Never settle for less if you deserve the best."

Underneath all of it is something almost defiant. In today's society it is hard for students or young adults to love themselves. We are so used to comparing ourselves to everyone and everything else around those that we have forgotten that our only competition in life is ourselves. The only person you should be competing with is the person you were last month, last week or even last night. They said older means wiser and it seems Kenny has cracked the code and he has realized that at the end of the day you better make sure to be happy with who you are and love who you are because at the end of the day that is all that matters.

"I'm 62 years old. I'm gonna always be myself," he said. "Some people ain't gonna like you because of your personality, or they say I'm too loud, but I feel good about me. If you love yourself, you gotta love yourself in order to love anyone else. I have crazy love for myself, man. Everyone that comes in contact with me, I try to show them that same love."

So where is Kenny?

Right where he chose to be, at Smooth Haven, still serving, still remembering names, still making eye contact with every student who walks up to his line. He didn't disappear. He didn't get pushed out. He just made a decision that puts his marriage and his peace first and trusted the students who loved him to come find him.

They did. And now you know where to look.