A Rogers couple, Mary and Alfonso Vidal, are opening a Young Chefs Academy, which offers cooking classes to children, in December. It’s the first Young Chefs Academy in Arkansas.
Young Chefs Academy, based in Waco, Texas, is a franchise school that teaches children ages 4-14 cooking fundamentals along with kitchen safety, menu planning and etiquette. Founded in 2003, it has about 20 locations around the United States as well as locations internationally.
“We thought that the community needed something for kids for cooking and Alfonso and I, we love cooking,” Mary Vidal said. Searching for franchise opportunities she and her husband discovered Young Chefs. “We ended up being in love with this project.”
Mary Vidal studied graphic design, but she has focused on being a wife and mother to the couple’s two daughters. She and Alfonso enjoy cooking together and enjoy introducing their children to new flavors and experiences.
Their school will open Dec. 3 at Suite 6 at the Village of the Creeks Plaza at 5208 Village Parkway in Rogers. Class sizes usually run about 12 students and are held after school.
Young Chefs Academy is a way for children to learn teamwork, experience different foods and engage in social interaction, in addition to learning lifelong skills. Rogers “needed something like this,” Vidal said. “We thought it would be a great addition to the community.”
Julie Burleson is the founder and CEO of Young Chefs Academy. The new Rogers franchise is one of five the company has sold this year, and it’s looking to sell 10 in the next 12 months, she said.
Young Chefs targets cities of 200,000 or more and places an emphasis on strong, family-oriented communities.
Burleson called herself “an entrepreneur at heart” who always appreciated franchising as a business model. The idea for Young Chefs came to her while she was in the kitchen with her 4-year-old son. “I was working on another startup business, and he was wanting to help me in the kitchen,” she said. “I’m a foodie and love cooking and herb gardening and all of that, and it was just literally one of those moments when he was after me to help him and I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, a cooking school for children.’”
When she couldn’t find a franchise that offered all the components she was looking for, she decided to open her own store, “but I always had franchising in the back of my mind.”
Cooking and cooking shows were popular when Burleson founded Young Chefs and they’ve only grown more popular with time and even more popular with children. “With the advent of ‘MasterChef Jr.’ and ‘Chopped’ for kids, they’ve jumped on that bandwagon because they see the kids, how much they love cooking and how they respond to the culinary arts,” she said. “The chefs of today are like the rock stars of yesterday.”
Several Young Chefs Academy graduates have made it to the finals of “MasterChef Jr.” and “Chopped,” Burleson said. One of the attractions of the business, Burleson said, is that it’s a safe environment and it caters specifically to children.
Parents are welcome to stay and observe if they want.
Learning to cook is a skill of lifelong value, she said. “We believe that kids who learn to cook are going to, as a result, turn out a healthier generation, not because we shy away from dessert recipes or cooking with butter, but people who learn to cook from scratch are going to ultimately be healthier eaters.”