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 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.
