This school year, hundreds of students at Riverside Brookfield High School (RBHS) will learn much more than the average home economics class could offer. That’s thanks to a new commercial-style kitchen, called Bulldog Bistro, at the school.
Grant Lewis teaches around 130 students in his three advanced culinary classes at RBHS.
“That’s just in my program. The other Foods teacher also has another 130. So while I’m teaching five periods, because we opened up a second room, we were able to double our class sizes and allow for another five sections of Foods 1.”
This year’s students are the first to take classes in the new kitchen. Before, the school had similar classes that were held in mock homestyle kitchens.
“We were still pushing the boundaries of home ec even within that classroom,” Lewis said. As interest in the program grew, “it was obviously time to expand to something that mimicked and mirrored the industry a little bit more.”
Last summer, RBHS began construction for Bulldog Bistro in what used to be the Alumni Lounge.
Now, Lewis says the new space allows students to learn much more than cooking and baking.
Students work in groups, taking turns as head chef, sous chef, manager and dishwasher, to mimic the hierarchy of a professional kitchen. They learn industry safety and sanitation standards, plus business and catering skills.
“They use commercial ovens, a commercial flat top, a commercial range,” he said. “We have a giant to-go window, so we can sell items right out of there and kind of run a mock business for them.”
Lewis is also an adjunct professor at Triton Community College, which has partnered with RBHS to offer college credits for two of the culinary courses, now that the high school has the proper equipment. The high school’s Baking and Pastry class is equivalent to Triton’s Culinary Mathematics course. The Honors Culinary Arts students earn credit equal to Triton’s Knife Skills and Food and Sanitation courses.
Students taking the RBHS courses also get ServSafe certifications.
“A lot of my honors kids are already working in the industry,” Lewis said, “So we’re able to offer them several years of a food handler certification for free in our programs.”
He says many of his students are interested in turning the skills they’re learning into a future career.
“For some kids, it’s watching them find their lifelong passion. I’ve had several kids tell me that because of our courses, they want to go into the food industry,” he said. For other kids, it’s “just finding a hobby that brings them some kind of joy throughout their day where they look forward to baking, they look forward to coming to Foods class, they’re excited to do the next recipe.”
Either way, Lewis says he enjoys watching his students challenge themselves in the kitchen.
“I love watching them surprise themselves,” he said. “They always come in, they’ll tell me, ‘No, I don’t know how to do that. I can’t do that. I’m not good at baking.’ And then they turn around and bust out homemade croissants and you can see the awe on their face of believing in themselves.”
