The California Culinary Academy ( CCA) was a for-profit school, and an affiliate of Le Cordon Bleu located in San Francisco, California. Danielle Carlisle established the school in 1977 to train chefs using the European education model. The original location on the corner of Fremont and Howard Street in the South of Market area of San Francisco, was located in the remodeled, top-floor, cafeteria in the Del Monte headquarters. The academy trained more than 15,000 people for restaurant careers through its 30-week baking and pastry chef program and 16-month culinary arts degree program. It was purchased by Career Education Corporation in 1999. Deal Cooking to Buy the California Culinary Academy, San Francisco Chronicle, Rebecca Smith, August 3, 1999
History
Later individual cases filed in 2011 (still ongoing as of September 2012), e.g., Abarca v. California Culinary Academy Case Number: CGC-11-511469, alleged the same problems. These suits cited data tending to provide substantial support for the allegation that CCA led students to believe they would be chefs after graduation when, the complaint alleges, graduates start in entry-level jobs available to those without culinary degrees, making culinary school an economically irrational purchase.http://webaccess.sftc.org/Scripts/Magic94/mgrqispi94.dll?APPNAME=IJS&PRGNAME=ROA22&ARGUMENTS=-ACGC11511469 (see the 1st Amended Complaint filed June 6, 2011) San Francisco Weekly Burnt Chefs Former admissions representatives at CCA say they preyed on students’ dreams of becoming celebrity chefs and glossed over the painful economic realities of the industry, Eliza Strickland, June 6, 2007 "Lawsuit Accuses Career Education Corp. of Deceiving Students on Program's Quality", October 1, 2007 In December 2010 CCA owner Career Education Corporation ("CEC") agreed to settle the class action for $40 million plus about $1.7 million in forgiveness of amounts alleged owed to the school or CEC. That settlement received final approval from the San Francisco Superior Court on or about April 19, 2012, and that approval became the final judgement of the court in late June 2012.
In 2012, while the class settlement was pending, new questions of more recent placement rate wrongdoing were raised by the school's own accreditors. The school restaurant has been closed and 25% of the faculty has been laid off effective December 31, 2012 due to drastically declining enrollment.
Attorney Ray Gallo, the attorney who represented the plaintiffs, has offered the following opinion: "It is a ridiculous business decision to attend one of these schools." "The whole thing doesn’t make economic sense. They know it and they don’t tell you."("Students Sue Schaumburg-Based Le Cordon Bleu," Daily Herald
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Accreditation
Programs
Campus
Alumni
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