Santa Barbara City College Serves Up a Tasty Classroom Experience

The next top chefs or restaurant owners could be coming right out of a local college kitchen that has up to three times the students trying to get into the classes than it has room.

Santa Barbara City College has a culinary arts department featuring a cooking classroom, cafe and fine dining restaurant with an ocean view.

Many instructors have over 20 years of experience.

Chef Charlie Fredericks formerly worked at Bouchon in Santa Barbara, one of the best restaurants in the city. He spent $50,000. on his culinary education at a high end college, but says his students can get many of the similar classes at SBCC for about $5000.

“People like to cook. It’s fun. People who find themselves in a cooking school
generally like it,” said Fredericks. He watches over a classroom with four cooking stations as part of a beginning class. Fredericks also teaches in the evening with the fourth semester students in the fine dining class.

The restaurants are called the “best kept secret” in Santa Barbara because they are open to the public as well as students and the staff.

The JSB cafe is a popular lunch stop with a menu that has Kobe beef burgers, wood fired pizza, artisan salads, salmon, custom sandwiches and daily specials.

The John Dunn gourmet dining room has four course dinners, wine, and a view of the ocean off Leadbetter Beach. It is open Thursday and Friday nights, with reservations recommended due to the popularity of the not-so-secret restaurant.

The menu there is created by the students, who have a cook off to decide what meals should be offered.

Some of the students already dream of opening their own restaurant.

Others watch food channels more than anything else on TV and see some chefs becoming media stars, or facing off in food competitions.

The SBCC program stresses the fundamentals, along with team work and professional standards.

While in the kitchen or dining room, each student has to work in every position. One shift they are a cook, the next time a dessert maker, and sometimes a server.

“You’re serving customers. You’re cooking food to order. You’re dealing with the hustle and bustle, and all the little ins and outs of the kitchen,” said Department Chair Randy Bublitz.

In addition to the on campus classes, Bublitz is offering some students a trip to France next summer to see some of the cooking techniques used there, and to visit with chefs, and bakers in Europe.

The SBCC program is a two year, four semester schedule. When that is done, the students are ready to apply for jobs virtually anywhere in the world.

Some are also planning to be private chefs, a job that has a growing demand in the Santa Barbara area.

On a daily basis however, they are taking classes and working in what’s often a very fast paced kitchen. At lunch in about a two hour period they have made up to 300 orders. During a recent rush one student Nicholas Rodriguez was in a key position to sort order and get the food out.

“You have to take a deep breath and you take it ticket by ticket or else you get overwhelmed and get lost. That happened to me the first day,” Rodriguez said. As he put a heaping helping of fries on one lunch order he said he makes sure the plates are prepared just right before he clears them to be served.

Many of the students are also a big hit with their family members and friends who know they are taking cooking classes. Often they are called upon to make special dishes, or desserts at dinner parties.

Will they also be on the Food Network or another popular TV show someday? Who knows, but they have a spirited approach to the food business and are mainly looking for a job they enjoy right out of college.

It’s not uncommon for former students to return to get a table and see how the new students are doing. They also support their friends who have gone on to open restaurants or work in Santa Barbara.

One graduate Angela Manzano said, “we have people that we know who have graduated before us and they have been extremely successful. We are very supportive of that.”

After dinner Manzano and her two friends, both graduates, ducked into the kitchen to see the bustling operation again and lend their support to the servers.

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If you are visiting the campus to enjoy the culinary arts restaurants, they are located on the ocean side of Santa Barbara City College, across from the bookstore and just above the stadium.

For more information or to make reservations at the gourmet dining room

go to :http://www.sbcc.edu/foodservices/index.php

Slideshow: SBCC Culinary Arts