A Recipe for Success

ProStart Prepares Future Chefs and Hospitality Leaders

By Karen Grigsby
Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development

Audrey Mangrum’s love for baking started on a stepstool in her kitchen when she was just 6 years old.

That day she made a box of blueberry muffins. It was a big deal for the little girl, and the confidence it gave her made a lasting impact.

“I feel like that memory is kind of what got me into the baking world because then from there on, I can just remember getting my first KitchenAid and making so many cakes,” she said.

Mangrum, a senior at Nolensville High School, makes birthday cakes for everyone in her family, including herself. She plans to attend Middle Tennessee State University to study hospitality management and Career and Technical Education. She said she hopes to either help students discover their potential as a culinary arts instructor or open a small bakery “in the middle of nowhere.”

‘Building the Next Generation of Hospitality Professionals’

Mangrum already has all the ingredients for a successful culinary career.

Nolensville High is one of 38 high schools in Tennessee with a ProStart program. An accredited program of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, ProStart provides high school students with hands-on culinary training and mentorship from industry professionals.

ProStart offers its own curriculum and competitions, where students can showcase their talent and win tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money.

Nolensville High has had a ProStart program since 2016, the same year the school opened its doors. More than 200 students are enrolled in culinary classes. These students hone their cooking skills in the school’s commercial kitchen, which includes a walk-in cooler, a walk-in freezer, and a large three-compartment sink. They also learn about restaurant management while developing key job skills such as teamwork, leadership, communication, and time management.  

The instruction and training make these students “highly employable” for jobs in Tennessee’s booming hospitality industry, said Brittany Barragan, Director of Education & Events at the Tennessee Hospitality & Tourism Association. The association supports and promotes ProStart through its nonprofit arm, the Tennessee Hospitality & Tourism Education Foundation.

“ProStart is actively building the next generation of hospitality professionals, equipping students with real-world experience and hands-on training,” Barragan said. “It is more important now than ever that the industry invests in the education of their future employees.”

‘We Have Not Stopped Growing’

At Blackman High School in Murfreesboro, 450 students take culinary classes, and 100 more are on a waiting list.

“We have not stopped growing here,” said Chef Frank Pinnix, one of three culinary arts instructors at the school. “If I can find another room or find a place where we can put in another kitchen, I can probably get a fourth chef real quick.”

Blackman has offered the ProStart program since 2015. Culinary students spend hours and hours in the kitchen, learning cooking techniques and creating dishes from other countries.

Pinnix requires his seniors to spend 20 hours each year catering events. Students have catered private weddings, a Walmart grand opening, and an event for the Nashville Predators.

In December, senior Jameson Smith got up at 3 a.m. to help prep food, set up, and serve a holiday breakfast to 130 Central Office staff members. He’s also made food for his fellow JROTC cadets.

As a Level 4 culinary student, Smith wears a chef jacket with his name and school logo. He wore the jacket while filming an episode of “Blaze Eats,” Blackman’s award-winning cooking show produced in collaboration with digital arts students. In a segment last fall, Smith demonstrated how to make crab rangoon.

After high school, Smith plans to work in the kitchen at a restaurant and country club in Kings’ Chapel.

He’s certain to have a leg-up over most of his co-workers. Smith has earned valuable food handler and manager certifications from ServSafe after studying sanitation and kitchen safety practices.

“If you go to most restaurants, there might be one or two, maybe three people there that are actually management certified,” Pinnix said. “Everyone else won’t even have that certification.”

A Heated Competition

Culinary students around the state will put everything they’ve learned in the classroom and in the kitchen to the test at this month’s Tennessee ProStart Invitational.

The Invitational, which is Feb. 16-17 in Knoxville, includes competitions in culinary arts and restaurant management. Students on teams that place first, second, and third will receive scholarship money. First-place teams will advance to the National ProStart Invitational in Baltimore in May. They also will receive funding from the Tennessee Hospitality & Tourism Education Foundation to ensure they can compete in nationals.

Teams in the culinary arts division have 60 minutes to create a three-course meal using only two butane burners, without access to electricity. They are judged on taste, equipment use, cooking procedures, knife skills, and safety and sanitation practices.

Nolensville High School is the reigning state culinary champ. For Mangrum, this is her third Invitational. This year she is responsible for her team’s dessert, a vanilla bean panna cotta with a cherry-thyme gelee, lemon curd, and pecan crumble.

Her teammate Eric Romano is creating the entree, venison tenderloin with potato puree, seared okra, and sauteed Brussels sprouts with a blackberry-red wine vinegar pan sauce. The students have been practicing for months, tweaking their menu and working on their speed. (Last week, they went over the time limit by just two minutes.)

Mangrum and Romano are pulling double duty this year, competing in the culinary and management divisions.

Management teams must create a business proposal that covers all facets of opening a restaurant, from floor plans and menu development to marketing and social media.

On the day of the competition, teams present their plan to several sets of judges.

“Think ‘Shark Tank,’ ” said Chef Lyndsey Weatherford, a culinary arts instructor at Nolensville High. “The judges walk up, and they have five minutes to shoot a bunch of information at them as fast as they can, as professional as they can. And then judges can turn around for two minutes and just kind of quick-fire questions back at them.”

It’s high pressure, but the young chefs can handle the heat.

“We’re problem-solving. We’re thinking on the fly while we’re cooking,” said Smith, who is the captain of Blackman’s culinary team. “You’re never doing one job when you’re in the kitchen. Everybody has a rotation. Everybody’s doing something. Nobody’s too good for one job.”

Future Culinary Stars

For some students, the ProStart program has been life-changing.

Pinnix said one of his students from Blackman’s first-place culinary team in 2023 has studied hospitality in Scotland, Ireland, and France. A student on the 2021 winning team chose to go straight into the workforce. She’s now the food and beverage director at a retirement home in Brentwood.

“I know she’s making $70,000 a year, and she’s just barely 21,” Pinnix said.

Nolensville High’s culinary program has plenty of success stories as well.

In 2020, one of Weatherford’s seniors was just two days away from competing in her fourth Invitational when it was canceled due to COVID-19.

“She was devastated,” Weatherford said. “ProStart offers scholarships, and so she was really counting on those.”

That was when Sullivan University in Louisville, Kentucky, reached out to Tennessee ProStart schools about a virtual contest in which students could film themselves creating the dish they had planned to make at the Invitational.

Weatherford’s student won, and her prize was a full ride to Sullivan’s culinary school. The win was significant because the student’s father had lost his job due to COVID and she wouldn’t have been able to go to culinary school without the scholarship.

The student earned her associate degree and became a pastry chef, working at Disneyland and in Las Vegas. And, in a full-circle moment, she is now mentoring Mangrum and advising her on her competition dish.

Weatherford is confident her current students are future culinary stars.

“Eric one day is going to own his own restaurant chain, and Audrey is going to be a pastry chef, and you’re going to see their names one day. I believe it,” she said.