Where are the next generation of restaurateurs coming from?
You don’t have to go far to find them — they are students at the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) in Santa Ana.
The four-person restaurant management team from OCSA’s Mekjian Family Culinary Arts & Hospitality Conservatory captured the championship title in the 2024 National ProStart Invitational that was held earlier this year.
ProStart is the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s nationwide career and technical education program that is designed to equip students with restaurant-specific certifications and competencies while teaching employability skills like teamwork, professional behavior, time management and communication.
The National ProStart Invitational is the nation’s largest high school culinary and restaurant management contest.
$200K in Prizes
Dubbed a fusion of “Chopped” and “Shark Tank” by ProStart, the competition provides a platform for the students to compete for a share of scholarships totaling $200,000.
Teams from 48 states battled in a weekend-long showdown that featured more than 400 students and a roster of top restaurant and foodservice industry judges.
According to OCSA, the four students – Tira Smith, Emily Leo, Cynthia Zhou and Max Madsen – earned awards and prizes including over $10,000 each in scholarships.
Held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, the National ProStart Invitational was a competition featuring the country’s best student culinary and restaurant management teams, each of whom earned the right to compete after winning their state-level competitions.
The 48 restaurant management teams presented and defended original restaurant concepts across hour-long interactive Q&A periods with a panel of restaurant and foodservice industry judges.
According to information from ProStart, the OCSA management team’s winning restaurant concept brought sports and breakfast together as a satisfying answer to chaotic schedules and unpredictable cravings.
The conceptual restaurant, called Teddy’s, is a quick casual restaurant designed to be a community destination for people who want to enjoy breakfast while catching their favorite sports matchup.
The students created a full business plan, including budget, restaurant design and marketing plans, and then pitched their proposals to industry professionals at a simulated business exposition.
The students set up a trade show booth to demonstrate their restaurant concept. In the booth, students had a copy of their written proposal and two 24×36 inch posters.
Business Focus
Noah Rosen was an OCSA ProStart student who graduated in 2016 and now has his own knife company, Laguna Hills-based Forge to Table Knives. Noah was a ProStart judge this year and was in Baltimore to cheer when OCSA won the competition.
“The restaurant concept itself has to work — the judges have massive companies that they run so they are judging and critiquing the concepts and quizzing the students on all aspects and details of their restaurant,” said Rosen.
“It’s almost speed-dating style. Judges ask about anything from how to handle an expired coupon to a customer with allergens to overflow parking.”
“It was so exciting — there were 48 states in the competition, and they beat 47,” said Alycia Harshfield, executive director of the California Restaurant Foundation, the organization that hosts the state competition. “It’s a rigorous and intense competition, so it’s exciting that their hard work was reflected in a win.”
“We want students to think about the business side of our food scene in California,” said Harshfield.
“It starts with entrepreneurs that have a dream and concept. We want students to think beyond culinary. There are so many other aspects to being in restaurants and hospitality.”
The Foundation hosts bootcamps every fall to introduce the competitions to students and provides tips and tricks to get them excited.
“The competition is a chance to put to the test what the students are learning, and it demonstrates the determination to stick with something and see it through, to work as a team, to practice long hours, to give up a lot of fun things to make sure you can do the best you can do,” said Harshfield.
“The skills they develop they can tap into when they go off to the industry. What they gain is transformative.”
