Buy a $5.50 breakfast, help at-risk youth learn culinary skills at new Boise restaurant
Ready for a new breakfast place that will not only serve up tasty meals of eggs Benedict, homemade corned beef hash, French toast and pancakes, but help a group of teenagers and young adults?
Life’s Kitchen, which trains at-risk young people for culinary jobs, has moved into the old Marie Callender’s Restaurant & Bakery at 8574 W. Fairview Ave.
The nonprofit had operated since 2003 from a mostly hidden location across Capitol Boulevard from the Boise State University campus. Life’s Kitchen will be highly visible at the new location, where thousands of cars pass by daily. Marie Callender’s operated there from 1982 until closing in January 2019.
While Life’s Kitchen students served lunch from a limited menu at the old place, they will now prepare breakfast and lunch from an expanded menu. Catering is also available.
Beginning Tuesday, May 18, Life’s Kitchen will open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Breakfast will be served all day, while lunch will be available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“We’re just really excited to be able to serve these youth and open up to the community,” CEO Tammy Johnson said during an interview.
The restaurant is named “Rory’s Cafe,” after Life’s Kitchen founder Rory Farrow. Farrow operated three former Boise restaurants, Amore, Little Amore and Le Poulet Rouge, where she noticed that teenagers she hired lacked the necessary life skills they needed to become successful adults.
She provided mentoring on how to read a recipe and use a knife but also helped them find their first apartment and how to set up a budget. She started Life’s Kitchen to bring that training to more young adults.
More than 755 people have gone through the program, receiving more than 550,000 hours of instruction. Life’s Kitchen has donated more than 2 million meals to Boise residents in need through programs such as Boise Parks and Recreation’s after-school programs, Interfaith Sanctuary, the Idaho Youth Ranch and Hays Shelter Home.
Students began working from the new, larger space about two weeks ago.
“We’ve gone from 5,900 square feet to about 10,500 square feet,” Johnson said. “We also added a banquet room for meetings and other events, which will assist us in becoming more self-sustainable over time.”
Marie Callenders space lets Life’s Kitchen teach more youth
Darrion Ontiveros, 17, graduated from the program last week and is staying on as a staff member. He’ll continue working there for 500 hours.
“I just came here to get my GED and general culinary skills, and I got a lot more training skills,” he said. “Having to go from being a student to staff, you have to train the newer students on how to do things.”
The added space will allow the nonprofit group to train up to 25 students at a time in its 16-week program. At its former home, Life’s Kitchen could teach only 12 at a time.
The move comes at a time when Boise-area restaurants find it difficult to recruit new workers because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The cafe seats 78 people, 35 more than at the Capital Boulevard building. There’s also a banquet room that wasn’t available at the previous location. It seats 68.
A grand opening celebration will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. this Saturday, May 15. Visitors will be given tours through the dining room, kitchen, banquet room and learning spaces and sample foods.
Meals prepared, served by students
The cafe will allow students to interact with real customers, just as they would in a restaurant. Along with breakfast items, lunch includes six styles of burgers, a turkey club, a Reuben sandwich, a pork BLT, a chicken torta and a roasted Mediterranean vegetarian sandwich on grilled focaccia.
Breakfast prices range from $5.50 for two eggs, potatoes, bacon, ham or sausage and toast to $7.50 for a three-egg omelet and $9.50 for corned beef hash, eggs and sauteed potatoes. Burgers, served with french fries or a salad, are priced between $10 and $13.50. Sandwiches are $9 to $12 and also comes with fries or a salad.
Catering prices vary depending upon the menu. A dinner buffet featured roasted pork loin, whipped potatoes, roasted garlic, bourbon-butter applesauce and glazed baby carrots costs $19 per person. Marinated tri tip steak served with a red wine mushroom demi glace, parmesan polenta and seasonal vegetables is $21 per person.
Other offerings are a taco bar, $11 per person; French quiche, $14; chicken marsala, $17; and a rosemary portabello, $15.
Much of the charm of Marie Callender’s remains. The booths with the padded benches remain, along with the wooden tables and chairs in the center of the room. Likewise, the wooden bar with its ornate tin ceiling and the fireplace on the west wall are intact. Even the long padded waiting room bench inside the entrance is still there.
Behind the host station is a modern espresso machine provided by Caffe D’arte. Students will also get training as baristas.
One difference customers will notice is that the interior is much brighter than when Marie Callender’s operated. New lights offering greater illumination were installed.
Life’s Kitchen spent $2.2 million to renovate the restaurant, Johnson said. The kitchen equipment, which dated from 1992 when Marie Callender’s opened, had to be replaced, along with old wiring throughout the restaurant.
Culinary training, GED preparation, life skills
While the dining room and bar on the west side of the building remain, offices, a classroom and computer lab were built in the space that held another dining room on the east side of the building.
It makes for an outstanding learning environment, Johnson said.
“Our mission is to help provide independence and success for our students that are 16 to 24,” four years older than those who could attend the program previously, she said. “Many of our students come from foster care where they have mental, emotional and physical health issues. Some have been in juvenile detention. Some have dropped out of school because that wasn’t the right environment for them.”
Besides the free culinary training, LIfe’s Kitchen provides its students with skills that will help them in their careers and in their personal lives. They learn how to work together with co-workers, how to listen to supervisors, how to manage a bank account and how to manage personal relationships.
For those who haven’t earned a high school diploma or GED, the program helps them study and obtain a GED.
In 2015, Life’s Kitchen announced plans to establish a new building at 34th and Clay streets in Garden City. That never happened, and after Marie Callender’s closed, Life’s Kitchen pursued that space.
“We decided that it would probably be a serve our mission better,” Johnson said. “Transportation was a little bit better out in this area. Plus, with recruiting and our social enterprises, the view on a very busy street would help get the word out about us, and help our restaurant business and catering.”
Like other restaurants, Life’s Kitchen undergoes regular inspections by the Central District Health Department. In its most recent inspection, on Nov. 3, 2020, the restaurant had one violation, for someone touching food with a bare hand.
Many of Life’s Kitchen’s students lack transportation and rely on Valley Regional Transit buses to get them to classes and back home. Life’s Kitchen provides students with free monthly bus passes.
Revenue from the cafe and catering has traditionally provided about half of Life’s Kitchen’s operating budget, Johnson said. Contributions from individual donors, corporations and foundations have provided the rest.
“We’re hoping to increase that to about 65% to 70% with our increased availability of space and services we’re able to offer,” Johnson said.
For its fiscal year beginning July 1, 2019, and ending June 30, 2020, LIfe’s Kitchen reported to the Internal Revenue Service $1.2 million in revenues and $679,042 in expenses.
Life’s Kitchen works with a number of restaurants throughout the Treasure Valley for placement of students. And before students graduate, they put together a resume and go through mock interviews.
“The goal is to have them placed, when they graduate ready for the workforce,” Johnson said.
For more information on Life’s Kitchen and how to apply, go online at www.lifeskitchen.org.
This story was originally published May 12, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
