Colts Cafe'

When people think of school cafeterias, they don't think of them as restaurants. Yet, our Colts Cafe' is just like any restaurant you see lining Stage Road. About the only difference is the Colts Cafe' serves only St. Ann students and staff.

We have a cafeteria manager, Noel Syriac. She is wonderful and is responsible for making sure the Cafe' is fully staffed, made spotless after every meal and passing health inspections, planning the meals a month ahead of time, overseeing purchases, serving a quality meal, while making sure the students and staff are happy and served quickly.

When Fr. Ernie hired me, I said that I would take the first year to see how the school operates. After the first year, improvements would be made where needed.

With that being said, we have made changes with the Colts Cafe' because the Cafe' has not been making a profit. At the end of 2018-19, the Colts Cafe' was roughly $24K in the red, and it is my understanding this has been the norm. We have to figure out how to increase revenue without increasing our prices.

So, Noel and I met this summer to review the numbers. In order for the Cafe' to break even, our revenue needs to be $400 per day. Last year, revenue was about $260 per day, which left us short $140 per day. -$140 per day times 170 days equals -$23.8K. There's our roughly -$24K difference.

How do we increase revenue?

Noel calculated each meal served. What we had to do was figure our what meals the students and staff were and were not purchasing. After the review, we have simply eliminated all non-profitable meals.

The second part of our plan to increase revenue is to better advertise our lunches. We want to make it easier for you to know what we are going to serve. Here's the link to our Colts Cafe' website page.  https://www.saintannbartlettschool.org/colts-cafe/

The third part of our plan is for me to be as transparent as I possibly can via my blog, and let you know about the profits and losses as well as the changes we are making with the Colts Cafe'.

The fourth part of our plan is to give you another option on school birthday parties. Whenever a student celebrates a birthday, many parents bring in pizzas and cupcakes for the class. When you bring in pizza for the whole class, the Colts Cafe' will have a whole class not purchase lunch. When you bring in cupcakes for the whole class, the Colts Cafe' will have a whole class not purchase desserts. We miss out on revenue from the foods not purchased. I'm sure the pizza companies greatly appreciate when you purchase 5 to 8 pizzas for your child's class to eat. We don't.

Here's our option to you. When you plan to bring pizzas and/or cupcakes to celebrate your child's birthday, contact Noel Syriac at noel.syriac@sascolts.org to order pizzas and cupcakes from the Colts Cafe'. Our pizzas are fresh, homemade, less expensive, and will be ready and waiting for you at school. The same with the cupcakes. Noel will have cupcakes ready that will also meet the needs of our students with food allergies. No eggs or milk in the cupcake or frosting. By the way, the pizzas are also gluten free.

All you have to do is contact Noel a couple of days before the birthday and she will take care of you. You can pay online with your PayForIt account https://www.payforit.net/, or you can just pay the Cafe'. We want to simplify the birthday process for you while helping you celebrate your child's birthday.

Last Friday was day one of the new planned improvements for the Colts Cafe'. Our revenue for that day was over $600. We are headed in the right direction. Please continue to give the Colts Cafe' the opportunity to serve you and the students and staff at St. Ann. Thank you.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School