by Kevin Ausmus | Special the Courier

It’s a love affair that has transcended the bonds of matrimony. Before Nick and Laurie Brandler became culinary arts teaching legends, inspiring hundreds of Bonita Unified School District high school students to find their passion in the restaurant and hospitality industries, they were young  service workers at Claremont eateries. The couple met while working at the former Harvard Square (now Bardot), and the rest is delicious history.

Today, Nick and Laurie are ProStart culinary arts teachers at San Dimas and Bonita high schools, respectively, and have assembled a program that has become so successful they are now making an impact at the national level, with two straight appearances at the National ProStart Invitational.

In 2023, San Dimas High’s ProStart management team represented California in the National ProStart Invitational, earning a third place finish. This year, Bonita High’s ProStart culinary team finished 10^th. Both teams beat out the best and brightest students in the state to get to the national tournament, including many from private academies.

ProStart is the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s two-year culinary arts and restaurant management program that reaches nearly 165,000 high school students in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Guam.

Nick and Laurie Brandler raise their fists in celebration as San Dimas High School wins first place at the 2023 California ProStart Cup. Photo/courtesy of Bonita Unified School District

The Brandler’s story is rooted in family. After meeting at Harvard Square, they found a way to combine their love for the restaurant business with their passion for teaching, providing them with a stable home life to raise their family without the punishing hours associated with hospitality work.

Laurie Brandler had been pursuing a degree in psychology at the University of La Verne while working in restaurants when the allure of the fast-paced environment led her to consider going full-time. Though she loved the work, when it came time to raise a family Laurie Brandler realized the long hours and inflexible scheduling of restaurant life would prove to be too hectic, and began looking for alternatives. Inspired by her father, an ROP and adult education teacher, she started at Bonita Unified in 2006, splitting her time between Bonita and Chaparral-Vista high schools.

Nick Brandler was long set on a career in the restaurant industry. He had worked every possible job, from front- to back-of-house (including working simultaneously at three Claremont restaurants: Harvard Square, Yianni’s, which is now House of Pong, and Walter’s). He was on the precipice of his dream job as a general manager when fate intervened. In 2015, he was hired to teach at San Dimas and Chaparral-Vista high schools, while at the same time working as an assistant general manager at a local restaurant. When the year was over, he was offered a full-time job at San Dimas High and was faced with a choice: to continue working long hours into the early morning, or take a job more amenable to raising a family. He committed to San Dimas High.

Soon thereafter the Brandlers began teaching ProStart. They partnered with the California Restaurant Foundation, which provided classroom resources, connected them with industry professionals, and introduced them to the ProStart Cup. They immediately had an impact at local and regional competitions, and later at the California ProStart Cup, where they built Bonita Unified into a powerhouse.

“Nick is an amazing, creative person and I always tell the kids, ask Mr. Brandler,” Laurie Brandler said. “He’ll come up with the idea and then I’ll figure out how we can implement it and make it work. Our end goal is to put these students where they need to be and help them in their path, whether it’s culinary or beyond.”

The program’s strength lies in the ability of both instructors to bring traditional rivals together and work as a team. Though Bonita and San Dimas students technically compete against each other in these events, they also cheer each other on and are ready to support whichever team advances to the next level.

“We don’t really have any rivalries here,” Nick Brandler said. “We want success for our students. When San Dimas went to nationals last year with the management team, Laurie came out to help us prepare, taking time to train my kids in public speaking. We’re both very student-focused and care about changing their lives.”

Several ProStart students now work in the restaurant industry, including Kris Lara, who is a pastry chef at a Michelin-rated restaurant in San Francisco, and Kiara Jimenez, a program and events coordinator with California Restaurant Foundation, who also traveled to Washington D.C. for the national tournament.

Though they now have nearly three decades of teaching experience between them, the Brandlers feel as if this is only the beginning.

“I want to see how far we can take things,” Nick Brandler said. “Laurie and I want to give our students the best possible experience they can get. It takes dedication and effort. We want to continue to invest our time into our students and keep on learning.”