For more than 15 years, Café Hope has used the restaurant business to offer young people on the Westbank something larger than culinary training: a pathway into the workforce and toward greater independence.
That work recently earned national recognition. The Gretna-based nonprofit was selected to receive a $10,000 grant from the Jacques Pépin Foundation as part of the foundation’s latest round of grants supporting community-based culinary training programs across the country. Café Hope was one of 10 organizations selected for a $10,000 Principal Grant.
The grant comes as Café Hope continues rebuilding and expanding a program that has served more than 750 young people since its founding in 2010.
Café Hope works primarily with young adults on the Westbank who are not currently enrolled in school or employed. Its approach combines hands-on restaurant experience with life-skills education, workforce preparation, job-placement assistance and continued support after participants complete the program.
Rather than treating the restaurant simply as a source of revenue, Café Hope has built much of its training around the daily operation of a real hospitality business. Participants can gain experience in both front-of-house and back-of-house restaurant work while learning skills that can translate to jobs throughout New Orleans’ hospitality industry.
Café Hope’s current program is structured as a 16-week course. Early weeks focus on workplace and personal development skills including communication, conflict resolution, teamwork, goal setting and financial literacy before participants move further into workforce and culinary training.
That mission is particularly significant on the Westbank, where Café Hope says geography and transportation can make it more difficult for young people to access employment and training opportunities concentrated elsewhere in the New Orleans area. The organization describes its goal as removing those barriers while helping young adults pursue stable employment, housing, transportation and greater economic self-sufficiency.
“Every day, we have the privilege of watching young people discover talents they didn’t know they had and confidence they didn’t think was possible,” Café Hope Executive Director Luis Arocha said in announcing the grant.
Arocha said the support represents more than additional funding for the organization.
“This grant is more than financial support—it is an investment in our young people,” he said.
Rebuilding After Hurricane Ida
Café Hope’s recent history has also been shaped by Hurricane Ida.
When the Category 4 hurricane struck Louisiana in 2021, Café Hope’s campus sustained severe structural damage. The organization responded with a $5.4 million capital campaign designed not merely to replace what had been damaged but to significantly expand its ability to train young people.
The rebuilding effort eventually produced a new teaching kitchen, catering space, restaurant and bar, classroom, computer lab and event venue. The Emeril Lagasse Foundation contributed $225,000 toward the project, and the new Emeril Lagasse Foundation Kitchen at Café Hope formally opened in January 2024.
Today, Café Hope’s footprint extends beyond its training kitchen.
Its newly renovated restaurant operates at Timberlane Golf and Recreation at 700 Lapalco Blvd. in Gretna and is open to the general public, meaning diners do not have to be Timberlane members. Revenue from the restaurant and other operations helps support Café Hope’s nonprofit mission.
The organization also operates the Café Hope Coffee Shop at 1151 Barataria Blvd. and offers catering and event services. Its restaurant at Timberlane includes a dining room, bar and event space, giving trainees exposure to several sides of the hospitality business rather than limiting their experience to kitchen work alone.
That expansion is part of Café Hope’s effort to create a model in which workforce development and a functioning hospitality business reinforce one another. Customers who stop in for lunch, coffee or an event are also supporting the training program.
National Support for a Local Mission
The Jacques Pépin Foundation’s grant adds another national culinary organization to the list of groups supporting that work.
Founded by the Pépin family in 2016, the foundation supports nonprofit culinary programs that provide training and employment opportunities to people facing barriers to entering the workforce. Its grant program specifically focuses on community organizations using culinary and life-skills education as a bridge to employment.
Along with the $10,000 award, Café Hope will receive Jacques Pépin Foundation aprons for its students and a group membership to the foundation.
For Café Hope, however, the grant arrives in the middle of a much longer story.
The organization that began serving Westbank youth in 2010 has survived a devastating hurricane, rebuilt its facilities and broadened its operations while maintaining the same basic idea: give young people an opportunity to learn in a real workplace, surround them with support and help turn those skills into a future.
And in a region where restaurants are not simply businesses but a central part of the local economy and culture, Café Hope is betting that a kitchen can be more than a place to prepare a meal. It can also be a place to start a career.
