Lions Lair Cafe

January 9, 2023

Story by Travis Hairgrove | Greenville Herald-Banner

On Thursday, Greenville High School’s Culinary Arts students will host the first public opening of their Lions Lair Café.

Although seating is limited and the night is quickly becoming booked up with reservations, the Lions Lair plans to be open the second Thursday of the month from February through April (Feb. 9, March 9 and April 13).

The official opening of the café comes after months of practice and preparation by the students, who have been planning, preparing and serving meals for teachers; catering events; and holding a couple of soft openings toward the end of the last semester.

“The restaurant will be by reservation only, with dinner being served from 6 to 9 p.m. and with new seatings every 30 minutes, so the restaurant is really about teaching students and setting them up for success,” culinary arts instructor Chef Lucas Kiowski said. “We’re not out to compete with local restaurants. What we’re wanting is for this to be a strong feeder program for those restaurants.”

The meal that guests will be treated to during Thursday’s official opening will start off with a mushroom risotto (creamy mushroom and rice dish), followed by a Cornish hen with polenta and pan-seared mushrooms (cornmeal porridge with mushrooms) and beetroot chutney/seasonal green vegetables as the main course. Dessert will feature panna cotta, an Italian custard.

For each meal like this, students are involved in every step of the process. For example, in preparation for a teachers' meal last semester, the students were busy in the kitchen the day before breading chicken for chicken parmesan, preparing vegetables for ratatouille, mixing batter for no-bake cheesecake and crushing graham crackers to make pie crust. And in addition to preparing the meals, several of the students have taken turns working as hosts and servers at the soft openings of the café.

Reservations for this Thursday’s official opening of the Lions Lair Café will be for 30-minute seatings starting at 6, 6:30, 7, 7:30, 8 or 8:30 p.m. in the GHS Career and Technology Education building.

The meals will cost $25 plus tax per person, and reservations can be made by sending an email to culinaryarts@greenvilleisd.com or calling 903-453-3734.

November 17, 2022

The Lions Lair Cafe made its soft opening debut this evening with a fancy Thanksgiving dinner for honored guests. On the menu: spinach & artichoke dip in homemade bread bowls, turkey roulade with prosciutto and cornbread stuffing.

Click here to view more photos on the Greenville ISD Facebook page.

“This evening has been 12 years in the making for me,” Culinary Arts Coordinator Lucas Kiowski said. “All of the students performed above and beyond expectations. It was extremely gratifying for everyone involved, including our guests, who were so gracious.”

The students will have one more practice meal before the LLC opens to the public in January. Look for more details after Christmas break.

October 29, 2022

Lions Lair Cafe will begin taking reservations in January

Story by Travis Hairgrove | Greenville Herald-Banner

This past week was a busy one for Greenville High School’s culinary arts students.

Not only did they have to prepare and serve meals for Greenville ISD’s Golden Lions Luncheon on Tuesday, but they also had to be up and working at 4 a.m. the following morning to get breakfast ready for the Greenville Chamber of Commerce to enjoy during GISD’s State of the District presentation.

Although GHS’ culinary arts students, with their red or black chef’s hats and smocks, are not an unusual sight at events in Greenville, the students and their teachers are preparing to take their training as budding chefs and restauranteurs to an even higher level by starting an on-campus restaurant. It is expected to be open to the public one day each month starting early next year.

“We’re not out to compete with local restaurants. What we’re wanting is for this to be a strong feeder program for those restaurants,” culinary arts instructor Chef Lucas Kiowski said. “This is why we’ve pushed for and have had several of our students earn food handlers certificates and even have some getting certified in food safety management.

“These are not regular high school certificates. These are real industry certificates,” Kiowski added.

Dubbed the Lions Lair Café, Kiowski plans for the restaurant to open in January, with serving days initially being the second Thursday of each month. The restaurant will be located inside GHS’ Career and Technology Education Center.

“The restaurant will be by reservation only, with dinner being served from 6 to 9 p.m. and with new seatings every 30 minutes, so the restaurant is really about teaching students and setting them up for success,” Kiowski said. “To make sure we’re ready to go public in January, we plan to have a couple of by-invitation only ‘soft opening’ dinners.”

In addition to catering events and planning for the public restaurant, the culinary arts students have been regularly preparing meals for GHS teachers to enjoy. So far, they have planned, prepared and served four teacher meals since classes began 11 weeks ago. The main entrées have been: spaghetti and meatballs, a club sandwich, chicken mole for Hispanic Heritage Month, and chicken parmesan just two weeks ago.

The preparation for each teacher meal has been rigorous, and the students have had to work quickly and as a team. For example, at around noon on Thursday, Oct. 20, the students were diligently working in their kitchen, breading chicken for the chicken parmesan, preparing vegetables for ratatouille, and mixing batter for no-bake cheesecake as well as crushing graham crackers to make the crust.

“All of our teacher meals have been on Fridays, and we cap the number of teachers at 50,” Kiowski explained. “Our schedule has been to make test portions Tuesday (on weeks in which the teacher meals are offered) so we can take photos to send out to teachers to look at as they decide if they want to buy a meal from us. Thursday is then our prep day, and on Friday, we cook everything in batches, just like we were working in a restaurant and serve the teachers their meals in the CTE area.”

In addition to plans to open a restaurant, GISD chose to help serve its ever-growing culinary arts program by hiring an additional instructor, Ben Spraggins, who has at least 20 years of experience in mostly high-end catering. To allow Kiowski to focus more energy on the advanced culinary arts class and culinary arts practicum, Spraggins has been teaching the freshman- and sophomore-level courses.

“Having two culinary arts teachers now also really helps us monitor both the front and back of the kitchen and give all the students the attention they need,” Kiowski said.

Within the next couple of months, the GHS culinary arts program plans to post information on social media, explaining to the public how to book reservations at the Lions Lair Café.