Sophomore Reis Miller built his first computer when he was just 12 years old. This year, he, along with other culinary students at the Center for Academic Achievement (CAA), was offered a summer internship at Googleplex, the headquarters of Google, located in Mountain View, Calif. But it was not Miller’s passion for technology that got him the offer — it was his passion for food.

The same year Miller built his first computer, he started working on his father’s food truck, Wilma’s. The truck specialized in modern takes on American classics, such as pulled pork sliders. After the truck was shut down last summer due to financial reasons, Miller needed to find another way to satiate his appetite for cooking.

I wanted to continue doing what I was doing,” Miller said. “Then I discovered Broadmoor.”

Broadmoor Bistro offers students courses in culinary arts and commercial baking for Shawnee Mission students. Since the fall of 2000, the bistro has allowed students to cook and serve menus they create and run the restaurant themselves. This year, the program moved to the Center for Academic Achievement (CAA) which offers two sessions for the classes, morning and afternoon. Miller attends the afternoon session, going to hours 1-4 at Northwest and leaving at 12:20 p.m. for the CAA. As a sophomore, Miller has to rely on other culinary students for rides to the CAA.

“Once you are in the Broadmoor community, we all take care of each other really well,” Miller said. “We are a family.”

Broadmoor has also allowed Miller to experiment with food, and his Instagram account, @inspiredchefs documents his and other culinary student’s edible creations.

“It’s an account where we can share what we’ve made, what we’ve created and hopefully inspire other people to become chefs,” Miller said.

Visiting chefs come to Broadmoor to lecture students and give them menus to create. One of them, Greg Fatigati, is the executive chef at Google. As executive chef, he oversees the many cafés that operate around the headquarters. When he came to Broadmoor, he encouraged the students to apply for a summer internship at the search engine giant.

“Google has culinary internships, both high school and post-secondary,” culinary arts instructor and Broadmoor Bistro manager Justin Hoffman said. “He was scouting students to be a part of that.”

For Miller, this internship could be a stepping stone. If accepted, he will spend eight weeks working in Google’s headquarters in various culinary positions. As an aspiring chef, Miller is excited about the opportunities this experience could offer.

“I like cooking with vegetables and creating flavorful dishes with them,” Miller said. “ very focused on using vegetables and not a lot of meat because the carbon footprint of meat is very high.”

Miller has ample experience cooking with fresh vegetables at Broadmoor. The farm-to-table movement that has swept the culinary world has found its way into the bistro

“We are growing pretty much every vegetable you can think of,” Miller said. “We have our own two-and-a-half acre farm in the back of the CAA building and then there is another farm at the old Broadmoor building which we are going to go harvest in the spring.”

After high school, Miller wants to take time to explore the world’s cuisines and then attend The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in Napa County, Calif.

“My dream is to own a restaurant in one building and then, in another building, a bakery and coffee shop,” Miller said.