School drops National School Lunch and Breakfast program, sees success with student-run bistro

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A culinary experiment is taking off at The Learning Center at Linlee, where high school students help plan the menus and cook their own meals. Their World Café & Bistro provides a tremendous and tasty variety, along with an enhanced sense of community.

“It’s more like a family dinner than a lunch line,” said sophomore Katie Goforth, a leader in the Lexington school’s emerging culinary arts program.

Each day, one of these students stands up front to describe the menu and share quick facts about the source country’s food, culture and social issues, along with a word of the day in the target language.

January’s menus, for example, present dishes from Mexico, Spain, Central America and the Caribbean. February will spotlight Asia, March is Europe, April is Africa and the Middle East, and in May, students will select previous favorites to revisit. Classmate Miriam Leasor agreed most enjoy the different foods and the environment, where the entire student body dines together.

“It’s a big change, so it took people awhile to get used to it,” Miriam said, “but it makes them feel at home because not every student eats at the table with their family.”

The original bistro launched four years ago when students asked for a voice in their food choices, including more organic options.

“They also were interested in learning about different cultures and international foods,” recalled Mojgan Martin, who coordinates the bistro and teaches Spanish.

The initiative began as a lone class, with students cooking on hot plates in a corner of the cafeteria and offering samples at lunchtime, but the momentum led TLC to overhaul the way it nourishes students.

“Not only do we show them how to grow the food, how to prep it and how to serve it, we want to change the way kids think about nutrition,” Martin said.

Last semester, the school board approved TLC’s proposal to drop the National School Lunch and Breakfast Program and its traditional cafeteria in favor of an expanded, self-sustaining bistro operation. The in-house aquaponics garden turns out basil and cilantro, for instance.

But the school-based model relies heavily on allies like Locust Trace AgriScience Center, which provides fresh produce in exchange for compost, and Glean Kentucky, where students might harvest at local farms for other community organizations in exchange for a basket of peppers. The culinary students also cater events for fellow schools and other groups.