Chef Jonathan Gardner swiped a ticket from the receipt printer as he boxed up a baked potato. 

“I got two chicken wraps, two smashburgers, one hot dog, plain,” he called out to a small group of Cleveland Metropolitan School District students. 

Gardner teaches culinary arts at East Technical High School.  But he’s not always in a classroom. For a few weeks each summer, he holds class on the school’s food bus, the Executive Grille On the Go.

The food truck is the mobile version of the student-run Executive Grille restaurant at East Tech.  That space includes an industrial kitchen, cooking demonstration classrooms, and a full-service dining room open to the public during the school year. The food bus operates in the summer. Students get paid for their work on the bus and are encouraged to apply what they learn outside of school. 

A graduate of East Tech’s culinary arts program, Gardner operates the food bus with Michael Szalkowski, the instructor who taught him during high school. Szalkowski has been running the bus since 2018 and recruited Gardner about three years ago. 

“It’s an extension of the classroom,” Szalkowski said. “We’re turning gears and focusing on a whole different process.”