A $10 lunch? $15 for a facial? RI's career academies are the best-kept secrets in town.

Imagine this: It's a cold winter day, and you decide to go out for lunch in Newport. After sitting down in the cozy, wood-paneled dining room, you order the special: local littlenecks served with linguine and pancetta in a white wine butter sauce.

The sumptuous meal – cooked entirely from scratch – costs all of $10. On your way out, you grab a freshly baked chocolate cookie, adding another 75 cents to the bill.

No, this isn't some kind of time-travel fantasy. It's a typical Friday at the Colonial Dining Room — a student-run restaurant that is housed inside the Newport Area Career and Technical Center at Rogers High School, open to the general public and arguably the best-kept secret in town.

Career and technical education, like the Newport school's culinary arts and hospitality program, is designed to give high school students hands-on experience and skills that will be in demand as soon as they graduate. And in an era of rampant inflation, they also offer some of the best deals around – provided you're willing to work around school schedules.

At the Knotty Oak Room at Coventry High School, for instance, a grilled 5-ounce Angus burger on a brioche roll will set you back only $5.50. A family-style fish and chips dinner from Warwick Area Career & Technical Center's Tides Restaurant costs just $10.

The options aren't limited to dining, either. At the Newport career and tech center, you can drop off your car for an oil change or tire replacement ($25 an hour for labor, plus a small markup on parts), then walk over to the cosmetology department for a haircut ($15). Students at the Cranston Area Career and Technical Center will build you a shed, sell you hydroponically grown plants, or even design an addition to your home.

"It's real work stuff. It's not playing on the computer," said Richard Lonardo, who teaches architectural design at the Cranston career and tech center. The result, he said, is a real sense of accomplishment for students who can drive by a building and say, "Wow, we designed that."

"They feel so gratified when they get done," he said. "It's s a big deal for them."

From lobster rolls to low-cost facials, hands-on learning has benefits for local community

The Colonial Dining Room, which has been around since the 1970s, is fairly unique: Members of the public don't need a reservation; they can walk right in, as they would do at a regular restaurant. While several other local high schools have student-run cafes, you'll need to call ahead if you want to eat there.

"We want it to be open," said Robert Young, the director of the Newport career-tech center. "I've never seen any community that is as connected to the schools as Newport."

Compared with a typical restaurant, of course, the hours are limited: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Wednesday to Friday. Hot food is served starting at 10:15 a.m., and the last lunch seating is at 12:30 p.m. (If you don't want to eat that early, takeout is available.)

"The idea of the whole program is that everything is scratch-made," said chef Matt Reilly, one of the directors of the culinary program.

Students aren't just assembling sandwiches and grilling hamburgers; they're also baking the bread, making the buns and whipping up the condiments from scratch. On a recent Friday, house-made kimchi – the product of a lesson on fermentation – was for sale behind the prepared foods counter for $3.

The program also has a strong relationship with local restaurants, where many of its graduates go on to work. Recently, students learned to make chocolate croissants from the owners of Middletown's renowned Le Bec Sucré bakery.

Typically, lunch service starts around Columbus Day, once students get up to speed. Around Memorial Day, the restaurant closes for the summer. Locals know to look forward to lobster roll week, which takes place toward the end of the school year. ("We ended up having to do a two-per-person limit," Young said.)

Down the hall, the cosmetology department might be the only place in Newport where you can get a facial for $15. Color and highlights range from $10 to $35. You just need to be willing to make an appointment between 8:50 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on a Wednesday.

"We're open for business. Very open," said Debra Bjorklund, the program instructor. "We will take you."

Working with real clients can motivate students, but some programs are cautious

Not all career-tech programs take an "open for business" approach. David Connell, who heads the Advertising, Design & New Media program at the Newport center, said he generally avoids having his classes take on outside jobs, since he doesn't want to undercut local businesses that often go on to hire his graduates.

Instead, he said, students learn to make everything from coasters to tumblers to embroidered jackets and screen-printed sweatshirts with Rogers and Newport Area Career and Technical Center branding, which are sold at discounted prices to the school community.

Similarly, East Providence High School's Career and Technical Center keeps its customer base "quite narrow" and is selective about the jobs its programs take on, according to director Robert Hanlon.

The brand-new high school houses the student-run Townie Pride Cafe, and also has a full-service automotive repair shop and a shed-building enterprise run by students in the construction program. Additionally, the fashion design program runs the Townie Threads Boutique, which sells "upcycled" clothing and performs alterations.

"The catch is that we are not really able to serve the broad general public," Hanlon wrote in an email. "Because we do not pay our students, our services are often provided at a fraction of the cost that a patron might pay for professional services of a similar quality. Therefore we often experience high demand."

The student-run enterprises don't exist to save customers money, Hanlon added. Rather, they're designed "to provide students with authentic work-based learning experience that is related to their classroom training."

Young, the director of the Newport career-tech center, sees clear benefits from having students work with the public. If a cosmetology student knows they have a client booked for highlights, for instance, they'll be more motivated to go to school that day.

Overall, he said, the graduation rate for the career-tech program is 96%. (Rogers had a 83% graduation rate in 2023.) Some students travel from as far as Bristol to get to school.

"A lot of kids, this is their 'why,'" Young said. "It's why they get up every day."

Expect low costs, but slower turnaround times, for big projects

Across the board, schools with career and technical education programs remind potential clients that they're closed for vacations and snow days, and they don't exactly operate at the speed of a business. You can save money on getting your car fixed, for instance, but you may need to wait a couple of days.

"It takes a little while," said Lonardo, the architectural drafting instructor in Cranston. "We only get the kids for an hour and a half a day."

Arguably, it's worth the wait: Seniors in the Architectural Drafting and Design program have designed everything from in-law apartments to duplexes, at no cost.

Clients tend to learn about the program through word of mouth, but anyone can give the Cranston Area Career and Technical Center a call and get on the waitlist. They don't even have to be located in Rhode Island: Right now, Lonardo said, students are working on a project for a friend of a friend who lives in Colorado.

Whether it happens in person or over Google Meet, the first step of the process is for students to meet the client and "pick their brain," Lonardo said. "They'll come up with some rough ideas ... see what you like, see what you don't like ... and tweak it until you like it."

Finally, the students will print a full set of blueprints that the client can bring to contractors and local building officials. ("I used to be a contractor, so I know a lot of the building inspectors in Cranston," Lonardo said.)

When the project is done, "they can drive by it every day and they can show their parents," Lonardo said. "The kids love it."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Want a cheap lunch or oil change? Try RI's career-technical schools