Cafe Hope students learn detailed recipe for success

   For Steamboat Natchez executive chef Joey LaBella to prepare enough shrimp Creole, fried fish, red beans and rice to feed 600 people who dine on two daytime and the dinner riverboat cruises plus the popular Sunday brunch cruise, he needs a lot of help.
   “It’s relentless,” LaBella said. “How do I keep up? By having a good crew. The guys know what to do. The day crew prepares for the night crew, and the night crew for the day. “
   LaBella found five of his staff through a partnership with Cafe Hope, a local nonprofit in Marrero that teaches at-risk youth between the ages of 17-21 skills to gain a job in the restaurant and hospitality industry.
 
  “The more I learned about Cafe Hope, the more enamored I became with it,” said LaBella, who has been chef on the Natchez for over a year. “It’s a complete program. Students receive six weeks ‘back of the house’ and six weeks ‘front of the house,’ and they are exposed to where the food comes from” by growing produce on Cafe Hope’s acre of land. “It’s good that these kids not only get restaurant training, they get life skills, and they are tested on literacy when they start the program and again when they finish it. When you work in a restaurant, you need literacy skills.”
Well-rounded training
   Luis Arocha, executive director at Cafe Hope, said the training program entails learning life skills, education, spirituality, financial literacy and nutrition for four weeks. Then there is six weeks of both kitchen training and on the floor of Cafe Hope’s restaurant, where students receive a “well-rounded view of the restaurant industry. They leave Cafe Hope ready to work in the front or back of the house,” Arocha said.
   Cafe Hope graduate Byron Fennidy, 24, was snatched up quickly by a West Bank restaurant after the owners saw him working at Cafe Hope. For the past three years, he’s been working full-time in the Steamboat Natchez kitchen. His mentor at Cafe Hope, Stan Salathe, helped arrange his initial interview through Steamboat Natchez owner Gordon Stevens, a strong supporter of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, which helped launch Cafe Hope.
   “I got an introduction to cooking at Cafe Hope,” said Fennidy, who joined the program when at a roadblock in life – knowing he’d better his chances at a good job by obtaining additional training in a specific skill.
   “Since graduating, I’ve been successful and I’ve become a better man,” he said. “I’ve learned how to stay dedicated to something, and I’ve learned the cooking fundamentals.”
 
  Fennidy works all shifts on the Natchez and knows how to  “get the food out.” He said he’s learned to debone meat, bake, sauté food and different breading techniques. It’s not unusual to see him making thinly sliced top round pinwheels or seasoning pork loins.
   “Byron has a good scope of what goes on in the kitchen because he works, days, nights and Sunday brunch,” LaBella said.
   Initially, Fennidy found brunch challenging because of the large selection of food that had to be prepared in a short period of time. Imagine cutting up cases of fresh fruit salad, making shrimp pasta salad and cracking 90 dozen eggs for 400 people each Sunday brunch.
   “We have a fair variety of dishes, and we try to keep it as elegant as possible,” he said.
   LaBella said he encourages creativity among cooks and invites them to occasionally whip up something at staff meetings. Fennidy loves seafood, and he cooked a braised turkey neck with crawfish-boiled mashed red potatoes.
   “I’m always thinking of new things, how to be different,” Fennidy said. “Every day, I’m learning a passion for cooking, and it’s growing deeper and deeper.”
   Fennidy is a cook on the Natchez, but the others from Cafe Hope were hired as servers where additional help was needed since more customers now eat on cruises.
Different positions filled
   “I truly believe that Byron’s success has been the true catalyst of our relationship with the Natchez,” Arocha said. “Byron is now a role model for the rest of our students who are working on the boat, and the staff is committed to working with our students.”
   LaBella, who grew up in the restaurant business, said training young adults from Cafe Hope is easier than other hires because they come in trained and eager.
   “The biggest thing I’ve noticed about the Cafe Hope group is they don’t have a problem with being spoken to directly,” he said. “In this industry, a food employee might be told (by a chef) several times during a day what they are doing is not good enough – whether they are not serving customers fast enough, being attentive,” he said. “They confuse the words respect and responsibility. When a chef tells an employee something, it’ s not directed toward them. They have to realize that there is only one opportunity to please a customer.  Often, you are only as good as your last meal.”
   Cafe Hope is open to students ages 17-21 and serves lunch Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Recently, Friday Night Prix-Free Suppers were added. To apply or dine, call 347-0772.
            Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].