Sussex Tech students prepare for a tasty career

Local residents can sample a bit of the teens’ efforts — or hire them for a catered affair By Pat Morris SPARTA — In the front of the Mustang Café, patrons get service with a smile from a friendly waitstaff. Behind the counter, cooks dish out made-from-scratch soup, sandwiches on house-baked bread and entrees like mesquite chicken with penne. A busy take-out operation dispenses favorite lunch food like deli sandwiches, clubs, wraps, fried chicken or ribs. In the kitchen, adventurous cooks are creating recipes, tasting and refining the food that will be offered for lunch the next day. Then there is the bakery area, where cookies, breads, muffins and more are available for sale, while in the back, bakers whip up batches of goodies and decorate cakes for the upcoming holidays. Just like any other restaurant operation? Maybe, but the catch here is that all of the work is done by high school students. The culinary program at Sussex Vocational Technical School is supervised by three chefs, each of whom oversees one operation: restaurant kitchen (Chef Gary Scully, who lives in Hampton), front of the house (Chef Lynn Bournaris) and bakery (Chef Chad Gasiorek). Each operation is run on the model of a functional, professional business, albeit with the caveat that it is students doing the work. In the school’s four-year program, freshmen and sophomores rotate through the three operations, getting an overview of the whole food/hospitality industry. Seniors and juniors specialize in either cooking or baking and spend those two years in that concentration. In both areas students learn the business end of the business, from planning menus and ordering supplies to ensuring, for example, that there is enough flour for all the cakes that need to be baked or enough time to make meatballs for a party. Yes, a party. In addition to the café and bakery, the program operates a catering business, not only for private parties, but for school and other public functions. It also provides holiday dinners and other meals for local shelters and community groups. The reputation of Sussex Tech’s program is so stellar that the students recently were invited to Atlantic City for a private tour of the kitchens at Harrah’s and Bally’s. They got to see the huge scale of the kitchens, the operation of a three-star restaurant like Bally’s Arturo’s, and more. This trip marked the first time that those back-of-the-house operations were opened to outsiders, said Chef Bournaris. “They were very impressed with our students,” she said. “We’ve been invited back. And two of our students were offered internships with Bally’s.” Getting the students ready for jobs in the field is the crux of the program, say the chefs. “We’re hard on them, but we have to be, because that’s the way it is when you are employed,” said Bournaris. Given that philosophy, Sussex Tech culinary graduates are able to move into culinary programs at community colleges and top-notch cooking schools like the Culinary Institute of America or Johnson and Wales, often with college credits earned at Sussex Tech. They can also, if they choose, go directly to work. “The skills they learn here (in the bakery) will help them get a better job,” said Gasiorek. “They won’t have to start at the beginning, at minimum wage.” Which is evident in the restaurant kitchen, where on a Thursday afternoon students Ryan Donati of Hopatcong and Stephen Bico of Wantage are working on their dishes. Donati is plating up blackened salmon with caramelized orzo risotto and warmed spinach on a red pepper. Bico is fixing pecan-crusted eggplant on pasta with a made-from-scratch tomato sauce. Chef Scully samples the dishes, pronounced the salmon perfectly cooked but too salty, at which point he and Donati check the spice mixture and discuss alternatives. Everything is a work in progress. And those students who don’t want to cook or bake for a living are in progress, too. Melina Dervisevic, for example, grew up around the restaurant business and wants to work in it, as a hostess. She likes being around people and plans to study liberal arts at Sussex County Community College, then go to work in a restaurant. And given that the students are teenagers, what if one decides this isn’t for her, after all? “They learn transferable skills,” said Bournaris. “They learn inventory, how to work with the public, how to take pride in yourself and what you do. “These are great kids,” she said. “They put their hearts and souls into everything they do.” The Mustang Café is open to the public most Tuesdays through Fridays from 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Call-ahead orders are accepted. Daily menus and other info is posted on www.sussex.tec.nj.us. For more information call 973-383-6700.