Putting the family to work - Pleasant Hill cafe doubles as homeschool classroom

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/21/5 | Ilana DeBare

[SmithL]

The Sweet Sisters Cafe in Pleasant Hill is unquestionably a family business.

Just ask Robert Quenneville-Clairmont, 16, who assembles salads.

Or Sterling, 14, who waits tables and orders most of the supplies.

Or Riley, 10, who makes French toast for Sunday brunch.

Or Reid, 7, who buses tables.

Or Sacha, 3, who greets customers and wipes down any surfaces she can get her little hands on.

Or Siena, 15 months, who ... well, spends a fair amount of time there.

Many small family-run businesses rely on help from a child or two, but Sweet Sisters takes this a step further. Cafe owner Deborah Lyse Quenneville- Clairmont is homeschooling her six children and conceived of the restaurant as a central part of their education. Her teenagers spend 25 hours each week at the cafe and 25 hours each week on academics, while the younger children accompany their mother to the cafe and help out more informally.

"This gives our children more of a real-life experience rather than a book experience," Quenneville-Clairmont said. "It gives them the opportunity to meet so many different people. And it gives them a sense of belonging to something -- they feel the restaurant is theirs."

Small-business experts say that kids have been helping out with the family store, farm or restaurant since time immemorial. But running a restaurant as part of a homeschooling program is definitely unusual.

[SmithL]

Although this story is in the SF Chronicle, the restaurant is in Pleasant Hill, in a different world from San Francisco.

[mtbopfuyn]

Child labor laws are very clear for ages, hours worked, tasks, as well as serving alcohol. They'll be busted soon enough.

[JockoManning]

Sounds like a Mennonite "Dutch" store not too far from here.

[Dashing Dasher]

Curious...

I may swing by there one day to check on it. I wonder if this is free day care or a good idea.

;-?

[Kevin OMalley]

Cool. Read later bump. Sounds like a good idea to me.

[Tired of Taxes]

Ping!

Home Education Ping List

If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.

If you're a homeschooler looking to share advice or offer support to other homeschoolers, click below to our thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461375/posts?q=1&&page=1#1

[Tired of Taxes]

Correction: Here's a better link to the thread for homeschoolers. (I'm just starting to get the hang of this...)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461375/posts?page=1,50

[cyborg]

What a wonderful idea! I hope they don't get shut down.

[HungarianGypsy]

Child labor laws are very clear for ages, hours worked, tasks, as well as serving alcohol. They'll be busted soon enough.
Depending on what they are doing... a lot of child labor laws don't apply when working in a family business. It's more a case of helping out. My husband's best friend's family had the children helping around their potato processing plant from the time they were little.

[kittymyrib]

You can work your own children as many hours as you want. Obviously, you aren't the child of a farmer or rancher. I had my very own cut-down hoe to chop cotton when I was three years old, and we worked 10 hours a day. Learning how to work hard was wonderful training. It kept us out of mischief as teenagers because we were happy to go home, eat and go to bed. And it made us study like crazy to excel at school so we could live an easier life than we did at home.