Our own Java Bar

story by Sydney Shain

We don’t live in a large city. This isn’t Lawrence, where students can swing by Juice Stop for a smoothie on the way to school. However, the culinary department here at Eudora High is working hard to provide for those with a craving for a refreshing beverage in the early morning before school.

In these past few weeks, students have had the option to stop by the Eudora-De Soto Technical Education Center commons area to purchase a drink at the counter after choosing from a menu with a decent variety of choices. These choices include different flavors of fruit smoothies, fresh fruit juices, and coffee. Each is prepared fresh by the culinary team, and is available in the mornings every Tuesday and Thursday until 8:10.

Students can appreciate the finished product, but sometimes it’s difficult to really understand all the effort that goes into the process.

“I have culinary seventh hour so I usually try to prep as much as I can the day before so we can be more prepared in the mornings,” said Sam Green, Sr. “I get there at about 6:45 so we can have time to make our fresh juices and make sure we have all of our inventory out in the commons.” Green has been a part of the business since it was planned out last year and has a huge role in the success of the operation.

“Mrs. Klein and I came up with the idea at the end of last year,” said Green. “Since the beginning of this school year, I have been creating the menu and costing it out.”

However, this smoothie counter takes more than one culinary student to run. Brooke Mitchell, Soph., can be found working in the mornings as well. Her reasons for helping out and enjoying it vary slightly from Green’s.

“Well when it was in the process of being created I told Chef and Mrs. Klein how excited I was for it and the day before it opened Sam came up to me and asked if I would like to help and of course I said yes,” said Mitchell. “My favorite part of helping is, as weird as it sounds, getting up early. I like to get up early, have my favorite coffee, and talk to Sam and Chef.”

Green estimates that about 25 or 30 students stop by to grab a smoothie or other drink. There have already been instances where the amount of students requesting a product exceeded the amount of product that was available.

“The other day we ordered strawberries and they never came in so the next morning we ran out and had to cross off the strawberry banana smoothie, which is our most popular item,” said Green.

All this effort is not only to provide a product for the school’s staff and students, but to create a source of revenue for the culinary department. This department has been widely successful in its growth throughout the past few years, and any more expansion can only mean positive things for the school.

“It’s probably a 30% profit off of our cost of making it,” said Chef Lowe, who can also be spotted working the smoothie bar in the mornings.

“All profits go to the culinary program,” said Green. “We plan to use this money for competition costs in the spring. Hopefully as we continue we will be making more profit.”