Oviedo High School reopens Lion’s Den café

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Danielle Stein

The Lions Den Café, ran by Culinary Arts students, give fellow students their morning coffee in preparation for the day.

Luke Thompson, Reporter

The Media Center has recently reopened the Lion’s Den café. The new installment includes coffee, bagged and homemade meals, and much more. Students are loving its vibe with the beautiful tile floors, cozy decorations, and dining area.

Freshman Tyler Tanner appreciates the cafe’s new features.

“It’s  very organized and clean,” Tanner said. “One thing that really caught my eye was the little hats the workers wear. They make me happy.” 

The café is a great option to visit with friends. Juliet Formel, a freshman, considers the café to be beneficial to them.

“The café helps me wake up and get through the rest of the day,”  Formel said. “I’ve gone about four times because I really got interested when I first heard about the café, and have just been wanting to keep on coming back.”

​Culinary Three students help run the café, serving food and drinks from behind the counter each morning. Culinary teacher, Karen Stapleton, considers the café to help students improve their skill set.

“Groups of workers are constantly changing and it helps give the students confidence in themselves,” Stapleton said. “The students are very respectful, if they do something wrong we bring them back, [then] to try and help them be better.” 

The café is beneficial to not only the customers, but the workers there as well, giving them employable skills that will increase job opportunities.

“It benefits the workers a lot… It opens them to new people, new skills and new opportunities,” Stapleton said. “Another huge benefit the café has on the culinary students is that they are allowed to put that they’ve worked at the café on their resume.” 

This allows students to learn many skills regarding how to properly talk to customers, how to use a register, as well as how to properly serve food and drinks in a café. Culinary Three students learn many employable skills through this program, which will give them more opportunities when looking for a food service job, especially if they’ve never had one before.

Throughout the day, whenever you want, you may go to the café and get a cheap meal. When you’re scouting for a start with your career, go check out the café culinary students.