The City of Elmore celebrated the grand re-opening of the Wildcat Café at its new location on Monday, July 28, 2008 by attending a ribbon cutting ceremony and enjoying refreshments following.  The café is owned by YSI-Elmore Academy and is operated as a vocational program for the troubled teens in residence.  The goal behind the Wildcat Café is to teach the students all aspects of small business operation.  Students are responsible for serving customers, which includes: prep work, order taking, cash register operation, food preparation, serving meals, and clean up.  In addition to customer service, students are responsible for daily cash reconciliation, food and supply orders, inventory management, vendor relations, customer relations, health codes and compliance, simple accounting, scheduling, and bookwork.
 

Once located in the Elmore Grocery under a lease contract, the Wildcat Café had to close their business last August when new management took over.  At the time, Elmore Academy wasn’t sure if they would try and re-locate or move in a different direction to establish a new vocational program.  After looking at several options, the administration decided the café was their best option.  It offered everything the students needed -ranging from community involvement to building a work ethic and learning job skills they could use upon returning home.  However, the question of where to relocate was a major obstacle—that was until Facility Administrator, Karen Klabunde, answered the phone one day and had a promising conversation with Jean Hilpipre, a local senior citizen of Elmore.

Upon hearing the Academy was looking for a suitable building to relocate, the Board of Directors of the Elmore Town and County Senior Citizens got together and decided to sell their building to Elmore Academy.  It seemed the seniors felt it was a golden opportunity to help the community, YSI students and themselves by selling their center.  YSI felt the offer was “too good to refuse”, accepted the selling price, and took ownership mid-January this year.
 
The next six months were spent renovating the building and getting it ready for business as well as training the students who would be working there.  The café did a practice run by serving only Academy staff on July 17th & 18 th and then opened the doors to the public on the 21st .  A week later, the Wildcat Café celebrated its official grand opening.   The café is open from 7:00am –1:30pm Monday-Friday and is located at 203 East Willis Street in Elmore.