From Cart to Cafe: Olympic High Students Serve Up Successful Homegrown Business

By Jorge Casuso

Cheeseburger, fries and a soda.

Those words may not have the ring of 'riting, reading and 'rithmatic, but they are helping to fill Olympic High School's scholarship fund with dollars and quarters and teaching students how to start and run their own business.

On Tuesday, students in the school's Entrepreneur Concepts Hands On (ECHO) program will hold the official grand opening of Oly's Cafe, a major business expansion that will replace the food cart they have operated for a year.

"It was the student's idea to have a business," said Jane Kennedy, one of the student managers of the cafe and a student representative to the School Board. "They wanted to have a place to eat on campus."

The enterprise has come a long way since students hatched the idea more than a year ago. Instead of the $700 it cost to build, paint, equip and stock the cart, the newly renovated cafe in the school's old cafeteria required $27,000 in start-up capital.

Most of the money -- $25,000 came in the form of a grant from the City Council -- was used to make the cafe wheelchair accessible and to convert the old elementary school cafeteria, which had been shut down for several years, into a cafe. The transformation required punching a hole in the wall to take orders, painting the walls and upgrading the equipment.

Several individual contributions helped complete the project, which had fallen $2,000 short of projected cost. "We ran out of money before we bought all the equipment," said Tom Yendes, the teacher advisor to project ECHO. "We put a lot of money into that (wheelchair) ramp."

From its initial conception, the students have run every aspect of the start up business -- from drafting a business plan, to conducting taste tests to producing renderings and drawings of the facility.

"We did taste tests to see what kind of hot dogs were better, what kind of cheese went better with the nachos," Kennedy said. "We tested five different kinds of hot dogs and three different kinds of cheeses."

For Oly's Cafe, students approached McDonald's, which gave them to go-ahead to sell their products, and Taco Bell, which they are still hoping will come on board.

"It was a new experience for me learning to talk to people, calling up people," said Shan Singh, a student who helped line up potential suppliers.

Oly's Cafe has been open since last Monday, and students say that even before Wednesday's grand opening fanfare, the cafe is doing better business than the cart.

"Now that we have the cafe, we have a lot of people coming here," said Charlie Hacker, a student who helps set up the cafe in the mornings.

On Monday, Robert Williams, an instructional aid at the school, stopped in for a McDonald's burger and fries.

"I used the cart periodically," Williams said. "I shouldn't eat this food cause it's so fattening, but it (the cafe) is a good thing."

But if Oly's is to make it big, it will have to go head on with the A la Carte Catering truck that stations itself across the parking lot. The truck's menu is more extensive and the food is cooked and prepared on the spot.

"They got different stuff than what I have," said Tony Villasenor, who operates the food service on wheels. "We got turkey cheese sandwiches. We make anything -- tacos, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers."

On Monday students were still lining up at the catering truck. "I don't go there (Oly's)," said a student as he ordered chili cheese fries.

The truck's days, however, may be numbered.

"We hope to get rid of the truck," said Yendes.