When diners eat at a new South L.A. restaurant, they’re not only going to get their fill of hearty comfort food dishes, they may also be helping to launch the next great local chef or restaurateur.

The 60th Street Cafe, a new student-run cafe and culinary training program, opened to the public in early November as part of a nonprofit organization’s goal of helping underprivileged youth build careers in the food and hospitality industry while offering affordable food to the neighborhood.

“We train our students. They’re in the kitchen, they’re learning all things within a very short amount of time. It’s an intensive program and then we work to place them afterward,” said Sherri Francois, the executive director of the SoLa Foundation, a nonprofit that works to empower underprivileged reside

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