Staff photo / Raymond L. Smith Trumbull Career and Technical Center culinary instructor Tony Thomas said the career center’s culinary arts program is expanding and a $1 million kitchen renovation will be underway soon. The expansion is expected to take six to eight months to complete.

CHAMPION — With plans to expand the culinary arts academy program at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center, officials will replace the 40-year-old kitchen with a $1 million remodel.

Melissa Starkey, a supervisor at TCTC, said the culinary arts academy combines the former restaurant services and hospitality programs, whose students use the restaurant with the original equipment and floor from when it opened in the late 1970s.

“We need to be progressive and move forward with a new restaurant,” she said.

She said plans are to remodel the restaurant this year.

Starkey said a former restaurant instructor retired at the end of the 2020-21 year and the schools hired Tony Thomas to work with Tiffany Dailey in the restaurant and Sharon White as an instructor of hospitality, which focuses on baking and event planning.

Starkey said the two programs were combined because the hospitality program, which focuses on travel and tourism, is not in demand like it used to be.

She said the culinary arts program is one of the first to close enrollment because so many students sign up for it.

“That program is one of the first to always max out with enrollment. It is an excellent program, and we need to have a more modernized, state-of-the-art kitchen,” Starkey said.

She said the restaurant equipment is original and is really starting to show wear and tear.

Starkey said plans are to move hospitality from the second floor of the school to an area by the restaurant on the first floor, which is an outdoor patio that can be turned into a classroom area.

“This way we can have all of our students and all of the instructors in one large unit. The teachers can do all of their instruction there, use the kitchen and have the dining room open to the public again,” she said.

Superintendent Jason Gray said the key is to have a modern teaching kitchen like many other schools.

“This program is one of our shining stars, and to have a modernized kitchen for the restaurant is important. There can be different stations for the students to work at,” he said.

Starkey said the program currently has between 35 and 40 students, and a larger kitchen and more space could increase enrollment to 50 or more.

Officials said the project will take six to eight months to complete.