The president of Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Dr. Bob Tift, announced during Friday’s all school Christmas assembly that beloved Executive Chef Jonathan Barnes would be leaving the school following winter break. After five valued years as part of Taher’s food service program at BSM, Chef Jonathan received the opportunity to become head of food services for Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis.

Upon hearing the announcement, many students reacted in a surprised and upset manner. In his time here, Chef Jonathan has become a strong supporter and a staple to the BSM community, molding the lunch program to fit students’ wants and needs. “I love how demanding [kids] are. Some just want french fries, and then some kids want sushi. So, I love being able to get both sides together on a dish,” Chef Jonathan said. “There’s a girl in the junior high and then a senior who are gluten free…any time we do any alfredo or pasta I always make a gluten free version just so they can have the same meal as any other student.”

It is this ability to innovate that Barnes hopes to bring to his new position at Minnehaha Academy, a new Taher client that is not yet on the same scale as BSM’s food service program. “I love challenges, and this is a brand new account to Taher, so they don’t really know us and we don’t really know them. We go live with them January 7th, and it’s go time, so I only have two weeks to prep,” Chef Jonathan said. “It’s trying to implement what we’ve done successfully here over there, with as few hiccups as possible.

One of Barnes’s main successes while working at BSM was his individual development and growing experimentation. His position allowed him to play around with dishes, finding out what students did and didn’t like. It is this development that Jonathan hopes to introduce in his new position as he will be coordinating both the junior and senior high kitchens at Minnehaha. “You guys were so far along when I came that I haven’t really done much to the program. We’ve raised the bar together, I wouldn’t say I’ve done anything individually,” Chef Jonathan said.

While Chef Jonathan hopes to bring some of his kitchen innovations to Minnehaha Academy, one thing he will always come back to is the BSM community.

“It’s really funny because my son plays for Orono hockey and I probably wear a BSM sweatshirt every time I go out and people come up to me and say, ‘I’m a Red Knight,’ ‘I’m a Red Knight,’ and just the community is so large,” Chef Jonathan said. “I say ‘OK son, we’re going to be Red Hawks now,’ and he said, ‘No, dad, we’re Red Knights first, Red Hawks second.’ He has his mind set on being a Red Knight, and we hope that we can stay attached to the community in that way.”

Throughout the day, students and faculty and parents alike took the time to thank Chef Jonathan for his service and attention to students’ needs, making the idea of parting with such a valuable member of the Taher food program much harder, for Barnes just as much as for the BSM community. “The relationships I’ve grown with you guys have been awesome, when you guys would come in and make fun of me and my food, I mean, you know just those little interactions with everyone, it’s just pretty special,” Chef Jonathan said.