Florida school to remodel cafeteria in food court

Students at John F. Kennedy Middle School will get new lunch options next school year and Principal Corey Brooks will get a new tool in his job of revamping the school's image and recruiting children in the community to come to Kennedy.

The school district in May will start construction on a new cafeteria that will feature four food-court-style serving stations instead of the traditional cafeteria style serving lines seen in lunchrooms for decades.

Heidi Schwab, who works with the district's food services department, said the new cafeteria, which will be paid for by state and federal grants, will allow Kennedy students to choose from four different styles of food at stations called Asian Experience, Homestyle, Cafe Sol y Mar and Beyond Burgers. The school district created a food-court-style cafeteria with similar stations this year at Atlantic High School in Delray Beach, but Schwab said this will be the first at a middle school in Palm Beach County. It will be a pilot to see if the concept works at the middle school level.