Pop-up restaurant

On-the-job training

Culinary students test skills with pop-up restaurant

Maize Career Academy teacher Cara Poole knows how important hands-on experiences are for her students. As a culinary arts teacher, there really is no other way.

That’s why she had her students create a pop-up restaurant in Maize. The goal of the restaurant is to give the maize facility and community a new place they could eat at during their work week, and to give maize high school students an opportunity to see what it is like to run their own business.

The pop-up is hosted at 109 W Academy Ave, also known as “the Blue House.” Owner of local coffee shop Moxi Junction, Joanna Kilgore, owns the Blue House and rents it to the culinary class.

“I wanted something unusual in that space, and what’s more unusual than being able to have a different kind of restaurant there every week,” Kilgore said.

Kilgore’s long term goal for the house is to have a permanent restaurant of some sort there, but as of right now she plans on continuing to rent the house out to the culinary program.

The students ran the restaurant completely by themselves with the help of Poole. They chose their own roles in the restaurant and created the entire menu themselves.

Junior Mallory Hertzel said the students wanted a bistro-themed restaurant, something everyone would enjoy while they could show off their culinary skills.

The students had many items on their menu, including chicken wings, Caesar salad, sandwiches, macaroni, and specialty made drinks.

“This experience has helped me to learn a lot more of the business side of a restaurant,” senior Delaney Michel said.

Michel focused on the finance side of the restaurant. Although she didn’t spend as much time in the kitchen as some of the other students, Michel made sure the team was making enough money to not break even. Poole assigned two groups to run the pop-up for two weeks this year. The first group ran from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8.

The second group of students changed the theme of the pop-up to be “Blue House Burgers.” They served from Oct. 12 through Oct. 22.

If all runs well, Poole said she hopes to continue this as part of her classroom curriculum and continue to do this with her students for multiple years to come.

“We are trying to get more hands-on experience, and serving the community is a great way to get your students out of the classroom but still continue to teach.” Poole said. — Sierra Tinsley and Brooklynn White — Photos by Sierra Tinsley — Design by Carter Stephens