Building on the success of his Line 4 Line literacy program for kids in Baton Rouge, O’Neil Curtis is planning to open a café dedicated to hiring teens and giving them job experience. Curtis owns the building at 445 N Acadian Thruway in Baton Rouge and runs a barbershop in one part of it. The upcoming Curtis Café is designed for high school students to safely prepare and serve food.
“I’m really opening this café up to get more of these young kids some job experience,” Curtis recently told What Now New Orleans. “I’m setting it up so I can hire high kids in high school, and it can be the first job on their resume.”
The café will have standard café drinks, including coffees, teas, lemonades, and refresher fruit drinks. It will also serve a range of sweet and savory treats, including Italian ice, snowballs, breakfast sandwiches, and chicken and waffles. An opening date has been set for mid-December.
Curtis will also continue to run both his barbershop and the Line 4 Line program in the same building. The literacy program involves kids reading books and talking about what they are reading while getting their hair cut.
