The Culinary Academy of Las Vegas is more than a training ground. It’s the best meal deal in Las Vegas. Much like getting a haircut from a trainee in beauty school or checkup from a student in dental school, the on-campus Westside Bistro offers amazing discounts on lunch favorites done right, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday.
📚 Culinary Classroom
“I ask three things of everybody who comes in here," instructor Kirsten Considine says. “Bring an appetite — because the food is fantastic — patience, and understanding, because these are students … This is not a restaurant. This is a classroom.”
The Westside Bistro is an opportunity for culinary students to prepare and serve meals in an environment that reflects a real-world setting, balancing everything from allergies and dietary restrictions to details on every recipe.
🍽️ What’s on the Menu?
The menu includes staples that wouldn’t look out of place in your average Vegas restaurant — like salmon served over rice with vegetables, bayou shrimp pasta, or a BBQ buttermilk chicken sandwich. A constantly evolving selection keeps things interesting for regulars eager to try new dishes in a corner of North Las Vegas that’s heavy on national chains and fast food. On a recent visit, specials included a true-to-form Monte Cristo sandwich and a baked potato loaded with barbecue pulled pork and crispy onion rings.
🤑 Let’s Talk Prices
Soups and sandwiches are in the $6-8 range. Entrees are typically $15 or less. The steak and fries is just $14, bringing to mind days of sorely missed loss-leading casino meals. The bistro runs at nominal margins. Revenue goes right back into covering the costs of ingredients and training. Servers aren’t allowed to accept tips as students, so any gratuity collected is donated to the scholarship fund. There’s no tax, either, since the operation is nonprofit.
☎️ An Order to Go?
You can place pickup orders too. That’s another part of learning, after all. Students also handle food for special events like quarterly graduations and off-site catering, including 5,000 meals a week for the North Las Vegas Community Correctional Center. Everything runs under the direction of executive chef Joel Schaefer and chef instructor Paul Boyd. Students round out their skills in the field at the 500 Grand Cafe inside the Clark County Government Center.
A Culinary Academy student makes pastries in the kitchen. (Rob Kachelriess/City Cast Las Vegas)
🙏 Nonprofit Mission
The bistro is just one part of the Academy, a joint labor management trust with the board split between labor and casino resort representatives. The program has been around for more than 30 years, beginning inside an old Downtown Days Inn before moving to a larger campus on the corner of Lake Mead and Revere.
Nobody is turned away. The certificate programs are licensed by the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education. More than 80 percent of new students receive funding. No debt. No loans. Nothing to pay back. Funding comes from various public and private sources. About half of the student body is union members who get to train and upskill for free as part of their benefits package.
“Folks can come in, they can be brand new to the industry — maybe they're unemployed or underskilled,” CEO Dr. Bobbi Damrow says. “We will meet them wherever they're at.”
👍 A Path Forward
The curriculum is designed to be as short as possible, generally two weeks, which according to a union agreement, qualifies as one year on a resume. The longest program is 13 weeks for professional cooks. There are hundreds of students at any given time, but classes are kept small for direct teacher-to-student interaction.
In addition to the servers and chefs visible at the Westside Bistro, the students include front-of-the-house staff, bussers, bartenders, pastry specialists, and baristas. The Academy even goes beyond the culinary side of hospitality with housekeeping programs, featuring a true-to-life hallway of replica hotel rooms as the training ground.
The Academy offers job placement and anything else possible to eliminate barriers to working opportunities, from childcare and transportation to resume building and paperwork like food handling or alcohol awareness cards.
