Café Royale Culinary Program Ribbon Cutting

Students will be cooking in the kitchen at San Marcos starting in January 2014! This Friday, Sept. 6th San Marcos is celebrating the reopening of the staff cafeteria and kitchen known as Café Royale with a ribbon cutting ceremony and celebratory luncheon at 10:30am. Café Royale will be home to the new San Marcos High School Culinary Program.

The San Marcos High School Café Royale Culinary Program is set to open in January 2014 and will serve as a Career Technical Training Program as well as a bridge to SB City College Culinary Arts Program. This Culinary Program will teach students about: safety and sanitation, knife skills, measurements, culinary math, basic nutrition, food handling, front of the house, recipe analysis, menu creation, basic food preparation, scratch production cooking, gourmet cuisine, international cuisine, local and sustainable purchasing practices and culinary terminology.

The culinary classes will be supervised by a Chef Educator who will work with Executive Kitchen Manager, Linda Robertson, and her team of professional cooks. Students will be assigned to a Chef-Mentor on the production side of the San Marcos kitchen, as well as on the Culinary Program side in the fully equipped training kitchen. This open kitchen is located adjacent to the San Marcos High School cafeteria and will be utilized to service the faculty and staff in their own, newly remodeled Cafe Royale faculty dining room. The goal is to see students both serving staff in the front of the house, as well as actively cooking the food for the special Cafe Royale menu which will change seasonally. The goal of this Career Technical Educational program is to gauge student interest in pursuing a career in the foodservice industry and provide practical skills and a pathway to secondary education in the culinary arts. “As interest in healthy lifestyles and cooking continues to be a focus both nationally and internationally, we want to offer students the opportunity to pursue their passions in exploring the culinary arts as a part of their education,” remarked Principal Ed Behrens.

The kitchen facility will be operational in January for the start of the spring semester of 2014. The previous kitchen consisted of outdated equipment, and the facility health permit lapsed 16 years ago. The entire effort is being funded by the San Marcos High School Royal Pride Foundation, which was established by Principal Ed Behrens and a core group of parents and alumni to support a variety of improvement projects throughout the campus. The San Marcos High School Royal Pride Foundation provides funding and support for a variety of projects and capital improvements that fall outside the budget of the Santa Barbara Unified School District. Their mission is to provide strategic guidance and funding for projects that will support all students and further drive San Marcos High School to excellence in academics, extracurricular pursuits, and facilities. To learn more about the projects and goals of the Royal Pride Foundation visit their website www.royalpridefoundation.org.