CHARLOTTE, NC - It's too early in the week, but what are your plans this weekend? It might include eating out at a restaurant, and whatever's your choice, it's going to be good. Photojournalist Tim Mullican and reporter Israel Balderas discovered the food scene rebooted ever since Johnson and Wales University opened it's kitchens. 

"Four o'clock, an hour and a half," yells out Assistant Professor of Culinary Arts James O'Hara as he walks around the kitchen class during exam period.

"You want more caramelization of the meat," O'Hara instructs one of his students. "A little more color."

 

It's that time of the year at the Charlotte campus of Johnson and Wales University.

"You want to take off the fat, and underneath the fat, you'll see some silver skin," O'Hara demonstrates with authority, as if he was the head chef at a high-end restaurant. 

"Sometimes you have to be a bit more stern and professional in this type of atmosphere," said O'Hara.

"It's not going to happen overnight," said O'Hara, "but in due time, these students will get out into the industry, and propel themselves into a leadership role, and one day be running their own restaurants."

When the Queen City opened its doors to the inaugural class seven years ago, just over a thousand students walked through. Now enrollment is just over 2500, with half coming from out of state.

The multitude of celebrity chefs and cooking TV shows inspired many to take their cooking to the next level. For Scherzanna Shemo who wants to work for a food manufacturer creating new products, being in the kitchen used to be a hobby.    

"I was doing it at home," said Shemo. "I was a house wife and I was getting a lot of comments from family members and friends, who said 'Oh, you're really good at this'."

With its open kitchen classrooms, the school helps draw more traffic and business to the Third Ward. Over the years, it has rebooted the area and the city's food scene.