The Mill Cafe, a student-run coffee shop, opens with plenty of real-world experiences

    KANSAS CITY (KSHB) -- Wednesday morning, hours before the student-run The Mill Cafe was set to open, a pipe burst. Water had to be shut off temporarily, and crews were called in to quickly clean up.

Program coordinator Bethany Kelly called the situation a real-world experience, which is the whole purpose behind teaching her students how to learn to go with the (water) flow.

“When you have an experience, when something like this happens, the big thing is to tell them first to remain calm and then what steps do we do,” Kelly said. “As my students all come in today, walking through those steps saying, 'Hey, this is what happened, this is what we're doing. Now, this is where we're at.' And then if they have questions, following up with them and helping them guide them through that.”

The Mill Cafe is run by six students. It is part of Hickman Mills’ Real World Learning Center, which opened earlier this school year.

Part of the CORE program, Hickman Mills C-1 School District hopes this is a step in the right direction for it to be accredited.

The cafe's grand opening was at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, but the students have been working the kinks out in a soft opening for the last month.

Students have learned the ins and outs of running a business, from creating a menu and ordering products to understanding how to work in food service.

Senior Syerra Funderburke said she doesn’t think she would’ve learned such real-world lessons without the cafe.

“Something I learned is real-world business skills and how to problem-solve," Funderburke said. "I don't think I knew how much it took to run a business and get it up and running and how much you really had to do and get done. I learned a lot of those I could take with me for my life."

Students are paid $16/hour and earn high school class credit.

Andrew Smithson, one of the CORE teachers, said to have patience when ordering but also remember that ordering from these students is influential.

“I like it when the kids get to see their work reflected in the real world, whether that's my class and their solutions, being used by the business that they partnered with or this, where it's really palpable — everything the kids do in here is accessible to anyone in the community,” Smithson said. “That really drives home the value of what they're learning so much more than anything else when they can see the impact of it in the real world; it makes all the difference.”

The Mill Cafe has a food and coffee/tea menu, with coffee from The Roasterie. The cafe is open to the general public from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.