Jose de Wit
SUN Staff Writer
Lonnie Montoya ran to the cash register, three hot hamburgers in hand, took a fistful of $1 bills from his classmate and stuffed them in the cash register. Then he ran to the back of the store to pour a thick, blue, syrupy concoction in a disposable cup.
After that, it was back to the front of the store to hurriedly stock the counter with Kit Kat candy bars.
“The hardest part is keeping up with the constant rush of customers,” Montoya, an Española Valley High School junior, said. “The busiest days are when they don’t like whatever’s for lunch at the cafeteria.”
That was apparently the case Monday, when even after finishing his cafeteria lunch, senior Ray Romero still felt hungry. A quick walk down the hall and a few dollars later, Romero walked off with a chocolate bar and a hot burger from the high school’s student-run store to keep him going for the rest of the day.
The store, called the “Hot Spot,” opened last school year. It started as two former students’ project for the high school’s marketing class, teacher Terri Strauss said. The students presented their business plan in a statewide competition, where they won seed money to start the store. They also received grants from local businesses, Strauss said.
It continues to operate this year as an instructional laboratory for the marketing class during lunchtime out of an empty classroom at the high school. Marketing students and members of DECA, a student marketing club, manage every aspect of the business, from ringing up customers to placing orders to keep the store well-stocked.
“It’s really good real-world experience, learning how to deal with customers, to handle money and count back change, managing the store and making orders,” said Montoya, who is president of the high school’s DECA chapter.
Marketing students earn a grade for working in the store, Strauss said, and for many the experience will end up on resumes and college applications.
“For me it’s perfect, since I plan on going into business when I go to college,” junior Dulce Avitia said. “So experience in marketing is really important.”
A good day brings in a profit of $100 to $125, according to Strauss. Much of that goes to DECA’s activity fund, which later this month will help pay the travel expenses for Avitia, Montoya and at least one other DECA member when they attend a leadership conference Nov. 20 to Nov. 22 in Phoenix, Ariz.
But a good portion of the profits are going right back into the store, which students plan to turn within five years into a business comparable to a college bookstore, where they also hope to sell school supplies and apparel. Already this school year, the store started moving in that direction by adding sunglasses to its inventory.
“We found a really good deal on them from a wholesaler, I think somewhere in Texas,” Montoya said. “So we said, ‘Why not?’”
The shades have sold at about a pair a week since the start of the school year, Montoya said. And soon the store will expand its product line further.
Avitia and a classmate recently won seed money at a statewide competition to open a cosmetics business. Classmate Sophia Trujillo won money to start a silk-screening business at the same competition, and DECA recently received a grant to buy silk-screening equipment for the store, Strauss said. The three students plan to start selling their products at the Hot Spot this school year.