Aprons On! Café Kick Start Turns Up the Heat at Inverell

From first dish to final service

Café Kick Start is built around learning by doing.

Participants will start with the basics, preparing familiar dishes such as ANZAC biscuits, toasted sandwiches, pasta with tomato sauce, green salad and chocolate oat slice.

Then things start cooking.

As the program progresses, the menu becomes more ambitious. Butter chicken and rice, frittata, garlic bread and coleslaw are introduced as learners begin working together across kitchen and front-of-house roles.

But preparing food is only part of what's happening.

Following recipes, measuring ingredients, organising tasks, communicating with others, coordinating dishes and working as part of a team all become part of the experience.

These are foundation skills—skills that can help people prepare for work, developed through activities with a real purpose and a result they can see.

And then comes the final challenge.

For the last stage of Café Kick Start, the group will help decide what to serve before putting their developing skills into action at a final food-service event.

From Pop-Up Café to Café Kick Start

The idea has its roots in something CCNI’s Inverell campus has already put to the test.

For Adult Learners Week, Inverell Senior Campus Coordinator Tania Archer brought a Pop-Up Café to life, putting learners behind the coffee machine and giving visitors the chance to see hands-on training in action.

Now Tania is taking that idea one step further with Café Kick Start.

Instead of separating learning from work, the program uses the kitchen and café environment as the place where that learning happens.

It’s an approach that fits naturally with Brodie’s philosophy as a trainer. For her, some of the most important qualities in hospitality are about people—communicating well, building connections and being comfortable talking to people from different walks of life.

For a job seeker wanting to strengthen skills for work or simply discover what they’re capable of, Café Kick Start offers a place to begin. And for someone who discovers an interest in hospitality along the way, it might just open the door to something more.

The course is fully funded for eligible students under the Ensuring Access to Foundation Skills Training program, a joint initiative between the Australian and New South Wales governments.