Fresh Start Café Launches New Breakfast Setup

NEWBURGH – RECAP’s Fresh Start Café in Newburgh launched a new setup this month that streamlines the restaurant’s customer breakfast experience. Diners can visit the café at 280 Broadway for a new self-serve continental breakfast bar featuring hot drinks, bagels, fruit, yogurt and more. The café has long served breakfast and decided to incorporated customer suggestions regarding options. “People are rushed in the morning and don’t have time to wait,” said Charlene Woodson, Training & Services Manager who oversees operations at the cafe. “People understand this is a training program, but speed is the nature of take-out breakfast orders. Now customers can get in and out faster by preparing items themselves.”

The breakfast bar is open 8:00am-1:30pm and offers bagels, muffins, and specialty breads and baked goods such as crumb cake, banana bread, zucchini bread, and sweet potato bread. Also available are yogurt, oatmeal, homemade granola, and whole and fresh cut fruit. Coffee, hot tea, hot cocoa, orange juice, apple juice and water are served.

The café, which is open to the public on weekdays for breakfast and lunch, is an employment readiness program that trains public assistance recipients for positions in the fast-paced food service industry. Breakfast setup is done by trainees who monitor its operation as they learn time management, quality control, loss prevention, expiration, and inventory. The Newburgh location currently works with 13 trainees.

Fresh Start Cafe is a job readiness program to help people on public assistance gain the skills and confidence to succeed in today’s job market. Under the guidance of culinary trainers in a restaurant setting, trainees learn versatile culinary techniques and customer service skills.

Focus includes hands-on experience with teamwork, communication skills, conflict resolution, time management, and job interviewing. Cafés in Middletown and Newburgh and serve breakfast, lunch, soups, and baked goods. Lunch specials are available as well as catering and holiday special orders. A third café is planned for the newly-restored Mill at Middletown complex.