WAVE Culinary Food Truck Fest Gives Students Real Life Work Experience

By Elijah Aston

Lake Havasu Unified School District’s Western Arizona Vocational Education (WAVE) Culinary classes hosted its third annual Food Truck Fest on Monday.

The event featured a variety of local food trucks that allowed WAVE Culinary students to work as staff and operate their truck.

The students operated the food trucks entirely on their own, with only limited supervision from their instructors.

Thomas Vandegrift, one of the instructors leading the event said, “It’s a part of our dinner series where the students take over the entire business. They design the menu, they design the advertising, they design the recipes.”

Elijah Aston/RiverScene

The students not only operated the food trucks, but they also created entirely new menus and advertisements specifically tailored for the event.

The students spent a month and a half preparing and developing the menus. They tested recipes, created designs and prepared to work with money.

Most of the students are 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, using two of their periods during the school day to work on their culinary skills at the WAVE Vocational School.

A WAVE Culinary student, Niko Lopez said, “I’m really excited to work here tonight. We came up with our whole menu from our specialty lattes to our lemonade and our energy drinks. It’s a really good opportunity working here, it allows us to get real life experience.”

Lopez worked at The Kind Cup for the event, taking on the nontraditional side of culinary.

Here are some photos from the event.

WAVE Culinary Food Truck Fest