Jul 25, 2008

Redwood City cafe to close

As food prices rise, restaurant ran deficit

By Banks Albach / Daily News Staff Writer

MiMe's Cafe in Redwood City is closing its doors, ending a long-running program that offered free culinary training in a busy restaurant setting.

After several years of running large deficits, the cafe and culinary school at 2050 Broadway will shut down Sept. 13. The board of directors at the nonprofit JobTrain in Menlo Park, which launched MiMe's in 1995, made the decision earlier this month.

Besides the heavy subsidy needed to operate, higher fuel and food prices coupled with sagging sales also influenced the board's decision, said Sharon Williams, JobTrain's executive director.

"The board has considered closing it down before," Williams said. "This time I agree with them. It's costing us too much."

Williams declined to disclose the amount of the yearly deficit, but described it as "just too much for the nonprofit to sustain."

Since MiMe's Cafe opened, See's Candies has paid its rent as a donation. The cafe is named after MiMe Huggins, the late wife of former See's CEO Chuck Huggins.

Toward the end of Wednesday's lunch rush, Agnes Arzadon and Melissa Massoletti were finishing their Mediterranean salads. They both work at nearby Kaiser Permanente and have dined regularly at the cafe the past seven years.

"I'm really sad to hear it's closing," Arzadon said. "It's a great opportunity for people and for us patrons to help out."

The three-month vocational culinary training program will continue at JobTrain's main campus at 1200 O'Brien Drive, and chef Adam Weiner will continue leading it.

Weiner said he'll have the opportunity to teach a wider variety of techniques without the confines of a fixed menu. MiMe's is open for lunch, offering pizzas, salads, pastas and sandwiches, so exploring the realm of slow cooking or French sauces, for example, wasn't possible, Weiner said.

"There are some positives with the negatives," he said as students cleaned up after Wednesday's lunch rush. "I think we've seen it coming for a while. We did something very special here, and we did it quite well."

Nearby, general manager Betty Basille was eating lunch. She's one of four paid staff members who will lose their jobs.

"I've been here 11 years," she said. "I love it, seeing all the students come through. I'm definitely going to miss this place."

While JobTrain offers a variety of free classes, the culinary program has been one of its more successful. Some of its roughly 500 graduates have gone to work at the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley in East Palo Alto, manage restaurants and kitchens at Stanford University, or serve and cook on cruise ships. Tips at the cafe are pooled to pay for the uniforms and knives students need when seeking a job, Weiner said.

But MiMe's offers more than just job training. It offers a second chance.

Yak Chan, 18, of Foster City, said he was hanging with the wrong crowd during high school and felt he needed a change. He said MiMe's gave him something to focus on.

Tim Gandy, 53, of East Palo Alto, is about to graduate from the program. After years of drugs, bad choices and inconsistent employment, Gandy said he's been clean for a year and has a new sense of hope.

"I didn't think I was going to pull through," he said, referring to the early mornings and the long kitchen cleanups. "All my life I've been sabotaging myself. But (Weiner) pushed me. I'm confident now I'll have a job when I graduate."



E-mail Banks Albach at balbach@dailynewsgroup.com.