Triumph Kitchen moves to Mid City location

Less than one year into its run, Chef Chris Wadsworth and his wife Sommer have moved their nonprofit organization Triumph Kitchen to the Family and Youth Service Center at 1120 Government St.

The organization, which helps at-risk youths get a head start in the culinary world with a 12-week extensive training and two-week placement program, opened last year on Third Street in downtown Baton Rouge. In its first semester, Triumph Kitchen had six students graduate from the program. It currently has 13 students.

Wadsworth says the additional resources, space and focus on education were key factors in moving to the Mid City campus, which also houses programs such as THRIVE and Baton Rouge Area Victims Empowered.

“What we had downtown was a vacant blank canvas,” Wadsworth says. “We were going to make a big kitchen, but there were things I didn’t look into in the beginning.”

At the new location, Wadsworth now has a kitchen for “real-time” training, a dining room nearly three times the size of his former space, and a garden where students will plant produce. Wadsworth has also worked out a deal with Southern University’s Agricultural Department to bring livestock to the six-acre tract of land so students can make cheese and milk.

“At the former location, it was always a rat race trying to get things done that we needed to do,” he says. “Now, we have everything we need in one spot.”

Triumph Kitchen opened food service at its new location Monday, offering expanded breakfast and lunch menus with daily specials created and served by his students. With the move, Wadsworth anticipates the next semesters will be able to accommodate more than 30 students. However, the chef isn’t content to rest on his laurels, and promises that one of his upcoming goals is to start a new Baton Rouge restaurant.

“Sommer and I love Mid City and downtown Baton Rouge,” he says. “I’m planning to open a full-blown restaurant within the next 18 months. I don’t know where it will be, but we’re excited, and we have it on the books.”

For more information on Triumph Kitchen, click here or call 377-7046.