Food Truck Battle Puts Culinary Students to the Test

Eastpointe High School culinary arts students took on a big challenge in November with their own food truck battle, practicing their skills in menu preparation, budgeting, cooking, and more.

Second-year students led two teams to create their own food truck concepts, including selecting the menus, shopping for ingredients, and calculating accurate pricing with markups for their menu items.

“The math involved in calculating the costs and pricing is one of the toughest parts of this project,” says CTE culinary instructor Chef Candace Shoemake. “There is so much math involved in cooking, whether students realize it or not.”

On the day of the event, second-year students served as managers, directing their fellow students as they prepared their mise en place, prepared menu items, took and filled orders, and served customers. EHS staff received "culinary cash" to purchase lunch, and the truck that raised the most money won the competition.

Ultimately, the Spooky Night Out truck brought home the win with their smashburgers, loaded fries, and strawberry cheesecake cupcakes. The burgers sold out before the end of the second of three lunch periods to rave reviews from staff members.

The Sports Night truck finished close behind, selling out of their crispy chicken tenders and earning plenty of positive comments on their Detroit-style pepperoni pizza and vegan brownies.

Chef Shoemake emphasizes the real-world applications of the skills learned in the culinary arts program, and works with her students throughout the year to help them earn ServSafe certifications that they can take with them after graduation.

“The whole purpose of CTE is to get students ready for real-world applications,” says Shoemake. “Even if they don’t end up in the food industry, we are trying to bring leaders into this community. This class is about so much more than cooking and eating.”

Article written by Eastpointe High School for the Macomb Daily.