Chef Juwan Rice to launch nonprofit offering hospitality education programs to St. Louis youth

Palate on Palette will launch in summer 2025 under Rice’s new Umoja Food Group

Rated Test Kitchen chef-owner Juwan Rice has announced plans for an educational nonprofit offering programs on hospitality, culinary practices and farming to young St. Louisans. Rice aims to launch Palate on Palette in summer 2025, as part of his newly established Umoja Food Group.

Rice, a Sauce Ones to Watch honoree in 2021, said Palate on Palette will offer a six- to eight-week curriculum where participants can gain real-world skills and experience they can’t access via school. “We're taking inner city youth, you teach them about culinary, hospitality, farming, and just educating them on all of these things that they really don't have access to in the traditional schooling system or in their at home lives,” Rice said. The program will culminate in a gala event where participants can demonstrate the skills they’ve picked up along the way.

Rice said that many of the details are still being worked on, from transportation to processes for selecting participants, but Palate on Palette’s programs will be headquartered at a new facility Rice’s new Umoja Food Group has taken over in the same building as Square’s headquarters at 1190 Cole St. in downtown St. Louis. “The facility has events space, it has commissary space, so we’ll also advertise commissary space to other food-based businesses and entrepreneurs,” he said.

In a city where food insecurity and the existence of food desserts are both very real issues, Rice believes Palate on Palette can play a role in giving young people essential skills and knowledge that will benefit them not only potentially in their careers but also in their personal lives. “We want to educate our inner-city youth that the food that they are eating affects how they’re going to live their life for the rest of their lives,” Rice said.

Rice also yesterday confirmed the formation of Umoja Food Group, which will include Palate on Palette alongside Rated Test Kitchen and its daytime counterpart, Rated Cafe, private dining and catering company JRs Gourmet and spice brand JRice Spice. “Umoja” means “unity” in Swahili, and Rice said that’s a concept he wants his group to embrace. “In Africa there were separate tribes, but each tribe had something that the other tribe didn’t have when it came to resources, and so what they did is they formed a 'unity' or an 'umoja' together to make them stronger,” he said.