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Outback Cafe at Chamberlain High Takes Kids Beyond Cuisine

Since opening a full-fledged Outback Steakhouse on the campus of Chamberlain High in 2007, Erik Youngs has helped countless students find their way beyond high school.

Mapping out a future for a high school student can be a daunting task, but having the aid of good counselors and school programs is often the difference between a future in fast food and a future as a chef or an accountant.

Erik Youngs knows this, and it's part of what has pushed to him to create a one-of-a-kind facility on the campus of for the Chiefs Culinary Operations Academy. By partnering with Outback Steakhouse, Youngs was able to create a real-life workplace for students to gain experience and decide if they want to go into a culinary background.

"They come in here and they want to be the next Food Network star," Youngs said. "They don't realize those people are actors. We show them all the areas a chef can work in and careers that this program can help them work their way into. We open their eyes a bit that way."

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The program started 10 years ago in an institutional classroom and kitchen all-in-one at Chamberlain, where Youngs would go through what he could with the kids. Eventually, the self described prima donna who has to have everything his way would take his project to the next level by approaching Outback.

"They sent engineers in here and got the blueprints made, 'cause we couldn't find them," Youngs said. "It was amazing; they had all the wood, tables, chairs, light fixtures, artwork, everything donated from Outback's vendors. A lot of people have the physical space we have, but no one has the setup and the complete program we have here."

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The program received model status recognition last month from the National Career Academy Coalition (NCAC) after the organization came out to see if COA met their standards of practice. After a day with students, teachers and administrators, the NCAC designated COA as one of 40 academies that meets the standard.

"Ten years ago when I came here, we made the name Culinary Operations Academy," Youngs said. "As time goes by, you realize there are things you have to do to earn that title of academy. So we started saying we need to make sure we're walking the talk and we are."

In the beginning, Youngs would get the students for an hour, teach them what it's like to be in the service and culinary industry and send the kids on their way. Now, Youngs describes the program as "on steroids," with kids learning all the aspects of entrepreneurship, service, management and cooking throughout four years as part of the academy.

"They start getting to participate in the running of the restaurant in their second year," Youngs said. "They're in the classroom Monday to Wednesday, we open on Thursday to serve the faculty, business partners and parents, and on Friday it's a detailed cleaning day. We do internships between junior and senior year, and that senior year is hopefully spent with them out in the workplace for class periods 6-8."

COA is backed by much of the faculty around Chamberlain. History teacher Alex Collazo is a member of the academy team and has always incorporated the lessons culinary students learn in academy class into what he teaches them in his classroom.

"This sets them up with tools for after high school and really helps get them engaged in their other classes, because you can apply food and history to everything," Collazo said. "A lot of kids can't wait til they're 16 years old so they can just walk out those doors and be done with school, but with a program like this, it's something real that they can take beyond school and it helps keep them here. The evidence is when the kids come in and they've cooked something they learned in class at home and they're excited about it, they've already taken it beyond school."

Regardless of what the student chooses, be it a culinary background or something else, Youngs feels he has scored a victory if the student has figured out what they want to do.

"In this setting, our guest is the student, not the people we serve," Youngs said. "We provide a diverse environment for students to prosper in, but our mission statement doesn't say that we're preparing them for a culinary life. We're here to prepare them for the next step, which is hopefully post-secondary school of some sort. Whether they go on to be environmental engineers or chefs I don't care, I just want them to examine who they are, what they want to be and how they're going to get there."

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