Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 54 NOVEMBER 2018 LIFE CHANGING EATERY Café UTEC in Lowell offers job training and team-based leadership to young adults. By Jeff Harder A few years ago, after a fire rendered his family homeless, Tico Mirambeaux's thoughts were filled with things like decid- ing whether to spend another night at a friend's place or in Eagle Park in Lowell. But today, having spent the last year working at Café UTEC in downtown Lowell, 22-year-old Mirambeaux has other things on his mind, like getting the meatballs and vegetarian chili ready in the morning, or the joy of preparing one of his specialties: buffalo chicken wraps. He also thinks about a future in the restau- rant business—a future that, thanks to what he's learned so far, he faces with newfound determination. "If I was to leave UTEC today, whether it's as a prep cook or a line cook, in the kitchen I feel like I can do it all," he says. Café UTEC on Warren Street isn't just a place for a passersby to walk in, glimpse the trendy chalkboard-scribed menu, and grab a banh mi or a quinoa salad on their lunch break. It's an eatery manned by young adults in the midst of profound personal change. Under the auspices of UTEC—a nonprofit organization aimed at reaching young adults ages 17 to 25 in Lawrence, Haverhill, and Lowell, the vast majority of whom have histories involving gangs, court dates, and in- carcerations—the café fits with the organiza- tion's broader emphasis on providing educa- tion, support, and market-ready job training for what it calls "impact young adults." In the café, these young adults are beginning ca- reers with room for growth. And whether or not they spend the rest of their working lives in a kitchen or not, the skills they're learning are indispensable. "If you want to learn team-based leader- ship, reliability, dependability, and knowing your place and your value on a team, there's no better place than a kitchen," says Chris Austin, UTEC's director of food enterprises for the past year and a 35-year veteran of restaurants and food service. Austin is quick to mention that the café intends to empower UTEC pupils to help them break free of low- ceiling restaurant work. "We want to give them the ability to go in and get that first leadership job, whether it's a line lead or a shift lead at a small or large operation, so they're not just slogging it out, going through entry-level after entry-level position." / L I V E + P L AY / PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTINA KHEM/UTEC Tico Mirambeaux has learned the art of cooking and customer service at cafe UTEC.