New Culinary Hub to Open in Providence to Aid Workforce Development

Josh Riazi has been dreaming of a way to showcase his student’s talents for years. After more than 10 years as a Culinary Arts instructor at Genesis Center, a workforce development, education and supportive services organization in South Providence, he is finally seeing that dream take shape. 

The new Culinary Hub of Providence, or CHOP, will be housed at the Providence Public Library at 211 Washington Street. The culinary team is conducting a soft opening on Tuesday, June 11, to show off the new space, new foods, and new students to ‘friends and family.’ The facility will open to the public in July.

The New Culinary Hub of Providence is scheduled to open next month. The facility will provide apprenticeship training for students going through the culinary arts program at Genesis Center, a Financial Opportunities Center in Providence.

“We want to be sure our students are at the top of their game,” said Riazi who leads the culinary arts program at Genesis Center.  “This is a very big step for all of us – one that has been years in the making. We want to put our best foot forward.”

Genesis Center, one of LISC’s three Financial Opportunity Centers (FOCs) in Rhode Island, has been offering a culinary training program as one of several career pathways available through the center. The FOC “Bridges to Career Opportunities” model delivered at Genesis Center bundles workforce training for culinary arts, dental assistant, medical assistant and more, with adult education, wrap around services and financial coaching for students looking to create more opportunities for themselves and their families. When these services are provided together, the success rate for participants is nearly double that of programs that do not bundle these services. Genesis Center has offered a culinary arts program for the past 18 years, the last ten have been managed by Riazi.

The new CHOP facility will be a hybrid workforce development, economic development, and retail food hub located on the corner of Empire and Washington Streets, less than two miles from Genesis Center.  The restaurant will initially offer coffee, pastries, soups, and salads, and then look to expand with additional items in the fall.

The concept of providing both a restaurant and a culinary incubator was an idea started before the pandemic. The challenges of Covid made it imperative.

“We’re leaning on the eclectic backgrounds of our students and their culinary heritage,” said Riazi. “We’ll open for dinner once we get our initial cohort of students launched and introduce a menu that calls on global flavors and cooking techniques. We were just approved for a liquor license so beer, wine, and cocktails will now be an element of our training program.”

The culinary program has evolved dramatically over the past 10 years, and this latest iteration responds to the changing demands in the marketplace.

“When we first started, the culinary program was more like running a small cafeteria for an elementary school. Then we opened up the space, moved on to culinary lab tables, added electrical and updated the equipment,” said Riazi. “When I think back on where we started, it’s wild that we were doing the training in the previous space. We’ve made so many improvements since those early days.”

The 8-week culinary training program is conducted at Genesis Center using its updated kitchen and culinary lab tables.

The culinary program begins with an 8-week job training course that prepares students to be a prep cook, line cook, or caterer. Trainees learn to prepare salads, stocks, soups and mother sauces; develop knife skills; interpret and convert recipes; identify and use kitchen equipment and ingredients; and serve customers in a micro bakery business. The training also includes work readiness skills, and both group and independent work so students can achieve their personal and professional goals. As a “Bridges to Career Opportunities” program, Culinary Arts training incorporates wrap-around assistance including case management and income supports, as well as employment counseling and financial coaching to help students improve their financial stability.   

The pandemic began to change the way training was delivered. Even though the demand for skilled culinary workers remained high, the nature of their work was changing. Students were looking for more entrepreneurial training and employers were favoring apprenticeship models.  “We were getting students and employers who were looking for more, and we worked to accommodate their goals.”

To accommodate the food entrepreneur, Genesis Center pursued a designation as a commissary kitchen. It was clear there was a gap in service locally for those pursuing a career in culinary arts between cooking at home and going to Hope & Main, a large food business incubator in Warren, RI. Because of their new designation, Genesis Center now provides micro leases for students interested in selling at farmers’ markets or catering an event.

Culinary student Lourdie Leon was looking for ways to expand her burgeoning catering business beyond what her at-home kitchen could provide.

“Students have the option to individuate once they get through the basic program,” said Riazi.  “And then we dig in to help the student launch their dream idea. For example, we had one student who wanted to launch an ice cream truck. That was a very different challenge from someone who wants to launch a catering business, but we did it. We helped her secure the permits, navigate the suppliers, get her SafeServ trained and helped her to buy the truck. This is her second summer and she’s doing really well.”

The entrepreneurship track also includes training in financial statements, marketing plans and supply chain navigation, and provides coaching for a period after the student is launched. 

Culinary student Ana Rodríguez was determined to start a ice cream truck. The team at Genesis Center helped her secure the truck and trained her to navigate her supply chain. She's currently on her second season and loving it.

“Everyone is along such a different path on entrepreneurship and so the training really gets individualized,” said Riazi. “There are similarities with the apprenticeship track as well. We teach the student about point-of-sale systems, profit and loss statements, and receivables. We’ve partnered with Centerville Bank for some of this training and it’s been very enlightening for the students.”

The new culinary hub allows students to see how it all works together. Students get on-the-job training for management level positions, menu development, barista training, and client service in addition to time in the kitchen itself. 

“Right now, we’re conducting training for the pre-opening as part of the apprentice training program that just launched,” said Riazi. “The cohort that started in February did the culinary program at Genesis Center and then will be hired at CHOP to complete a portion of the 2,000-hour apprenticeship program and then transition to a local employer to finish out those hours.”

Currently, Genesis Center is working to partner with Feast and Fettle, and Sodexo at PC and RISD for that final phase of training and expect that subsequent cohorts will have additional choices for their final leg of training. “We’ll likely have about 10 employer partners in the next year – that’s the goal,” said Riazi. “We’ve clearly dialed into a need in the community and have gotten tremendous positive feedback on this program. In the past three months, we’ve enrolled about 20 students and that’s definitely a jump from previous levels. I’m excited to see where CHOP takes us next.”

###