Restaurant business course comes to Texas high schools

Nation's Restaurant News, May 28, 2001 by Dina Berta

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Carmelo's Italian Restaurant and Outback Steakhouse both plan to open new restaurants later this summer in such unusual locations as Texas high schools.

Carmelo's, an upscale Italian restaurant owned by Carmelo Mauro, will open a miniature version of its upscale Austin and Houston restaurants in Del Valle High School in Austin. Tampa, Fla.-based Outback will open a scaled-down Outback at Westside High School in Houston.

Both restaurants will be about 4,000 square feet and will seat fewer than 40 people, and they both will be run by high-school juniors and seniors.

The business partnership program may be the first of its kind for high-school students, said Bill Vear, senior director of education for the Texas Restaurant Association Education Foundation in Austin.

"A lot of programs take the schools to the industry; this rings the industry into the schools," Vear aid.

Both schools teach the TRAEF Entrepreneur 101 curriculum. Besides cooking and food safety, students learn all aspects of restaurant management, from purchasing and selling to running cash registers and marketing.

"Yes, they will be grilling some great steaks, but the program isn't just about one job function, like cooking or serving food," said Steve Miller, Outback's joint-venture partner in south Texas. "It's about the big picture of what it takes to start and operate a business from the ground up."

Both restaurant companies are donating money and services, including architects, designers, general managers, chefs and other restaurant personnel. Those professionals will work with the students throughout the school year. More than 40 groups also have contributed to the effort, including Coca-Cola Co.; the Houston Endowment Inc., a private foundation; and the school districts for both schools.

Mauro, who has donated $50,000 to the program, plans to work once a week with the students.

For the Sicilian-born restaurateur, the program is a chance to return a favor he received as a 15- year-old who yearned to break with the agricultural and fishing tradition of his community and attend a new hospitality school.

Mauro's father was against it, but a teacher convinced the father to let his son go. Mauro went on to work in restaurants and hotels around the world, eventually settling in Houston in 1978 to open his own restaurant.

"I have had so much opportunity," said Mauro, who is president-elect of the TRA and sits on the board for TRAEF. "I've always wanted to do something for children and young people."