GREEN RIVER — The Lincoln Middle School cafeteria kitchen was recently remodeled, and the Sweetwater County School District No. 2 nutrition services staff hosted a food show Wednesday night in celebration.
The remodel has been a two-year process that was done in two phases, in which the school district had to pause the project and then pick it back up for completion.
“It has been a huge process, we have had to rethink the process and menus to still feed the kids,” said Leah Kenison, Nutrition Services Director. “We are so grateful for the beautiful space and we are happy to be able to be in the space and back to our regular schedule of the day to day.”
Groathouse Construction was the contractor on the project, and they have completed several other construction projects throughout the district, including the aquatic center at Green River High School. In total, the cost of the project was $4.2 million, which came from the major maintenance fund consisting of money from the state.
The nutrition services staff celebrated their new kitchen by inviting the community to tour it, and then try samples of food that they will cook and serve to students throughout the year. Food included everything from breakfast burritos to walking tacos to teriyaki chicken and pigs in a blanket.
Lincoln Middle School serves as the central kitchen for the entire school district, meaning the majority of the meals served are cooked and prepared at Lincoln and are then delivered to the other schools. Kenison explained that Lincoln is the central kitchen because the building originally was the high school.
“This kitchen has always been the central kitchen, it is set up for the preparation of food in large quantities. Therefore it has just remained the location. This is the only kitchen with an elevator for our food to be delivered to,” Kenison said.
The middle school was built 50 years ago, and the kitchen was original to the building. Therefore, it was time for upgrades, and a lot of the equipment was no longer in working order.
“The kitchen was old, we just needed a new flow to the kitchen for better efficiency and safety measures for our staff,” Kenison said.
The kitchen is equipped with three 60-quart mixers, as well as a smaller 20-quart mixer, which replaced the original mixers that were all 50 years old.
“All three of our mixers died the same year, the same day. We were making carrot cake because it was National Carrot Cake Day, and they were making them from scratch, and all this oil started pouring out of the head and into the bowl,” Kenison said.
Switching to another mixer, the same thing happened, and then happened again with the third mixer.
“We had to reschedule our carrot cake day,” she said.
The kitchen also has several new gas ovens that can cook with either steam only, heat only, or can use a combination of heat and steam. Kenison said that the fried rice they made for the food show was cooked in the oven.
One new addition that is still yet to come to the kitchen is a charbroil grill that will allow them to cook raw Wyoming beef, as opposed to the pre-made patties that just get heated up. The district will move to the Wyoming beef next year.
“We’re not going to be doing the pre-made stuff, it will be Wyoming-grown raw beef. It will support our local agriculture, farmers and ranchers,” Kenison said.
To see more photos of the food show, see below.
