When Mark and Debbie Burgess ventured out to open a downtown Springfield café, their search for an executive chef took them straight to Commercial Street.
At the corner of Commercial and Boonville Avenue, the Victory Trade School is churning out culinary students ready-made for the restaurant business, and that’s where the Burgesses met John Allen.
“He prepared a meal for us, and pretty much blew us away,” Debbie Burgess says of the table-side test. “The rest is pretty much history.”
Allen, who finished the Victory Trade School program earlier this year and officially graduates this month, has served as executive chef at Aviary Café and Creperie since its April opening at Walnut Street and Jefferson Avenue.
Burgess says she and her husband, an airplane pilot by trade, had no restaurant experience, and they have leaned on Allen to get the business going.
Victory Trade School is designed to transform students’ lives by way of the culinary arts, says President Victoria Queen, who was hired in 2001 by Springfield Victory Mission Inc. board members and Executive Director Jim Harriger to create the school, which opened in 2003.
On mission
As a 501(c)3 established under Victory Mission, the school started with nine students and two staff members. Now, Victory Trade School’s 15 staff members can serve up to 32 students in its 12-month culinary arts and other programs.
VTS, a postsecondary trade school, takes in students who have had troubled lives and offers them a chance at an education. With the main focus on culinary arts, students are required to take classes in food preparation, hospitality marketing and restaurant management. Other programs offered include a Christian faith-based recovery program for women, a GED program for both men and women, and a PREP program that involves prayer, reading scripture, education and praise to God, according to
VictoryTradeSchool.edu.
Students who have had struggles with alcohol and drugs must have been sober for a year and have completed a long-term recovery program prior to enrollment, Queen says. School officials recruit students from Ozark-based Teen Challenge, a 16-month addiction recovery program, various rescue missions and Salvation Army.
This month, VTS celebrated the graduations of 41 students, including about 25 in the culinary arts program.
“The first year, we had a 17 percent completion rate, and now we have an 89 percent completion rate,” Queen says.
For its work in helping students succeed, VTS recently won the national Hope Award for Effective Compassion from World Magazine, earning the school $30,000 in rewards.
VTS has earned both North Central Association accreditation and Missouri Department of Higher Education certification, says Queen, who is currently working on her doctorate in higher education administration from St. Louis University.
On-the-job training
On top of course work, students work 40 hours a week at one of the restaurants run by the not-for-profit – The Cook’s Kettle restaurant, 200 W. Commercial St., or The Branch Bistro and Catering, 1445 Boonville Ave.
“They know they’re going to work hard when they come here,” Queen says. “They’re up at four in the morning, and they’re working all day.”
Queen says the restaurants serve as social enterprises that give students job experience and generate money for the school, which operated on a $857,000 budget last year.
“The restaurants are run like a business, but they’re also the laboratory learning site for the students,” she says.
The Cook’s Kettle operates on the first floor of the trade school and offers a neighborhood atmosphere for students and patrons, Queen says.
“I always tell people that this is like being in New York, where everybody is just from all walks of life,” she adds. “I call it our little melting pot.”
Cook’s Kettle sells burgers, sandwich specials, salads and desserts in the $5 range, while Branch Bistro at the Assemblies of God headquarters offers a more upscale presentation with soups, salads and sandwiches prepared by students for about the same price.
“They’re walking away with marketable skills,” says Tony Turner, VTS’ dean of students the last three years.
By giving students hands-on experience, from doing dishes to preparing and serving food, VTS officials say students acquire workplace confidence.
“A lot of times, they’ll come in and they’re barely holding their heads up,” says Brian Romano, executive chef at Cook’s Kettle and co-department chairman of the culinary department. “By the time they actually leave, they are confident and they realize … they can hold a position.”[[In-content Ad]]
