UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – This is not a training exercise; it is the real world. Real customers, real food and real experiences.
Hospitality management students enrolled in Advanced Food Production and Management, HM 430, are running a restaurant — creating a fine dining experience through carefully orchestrated theme dinners open to the public throughout each semester. The course is a senior-level capstone class for hospitality management majors.
Students present four-course menus at Café Laura, a student-run, on-campus restaurant in Mateer Building, and in doing so learn how to manage a restaurant.
“The theme dinners at Café Laura help prepare you for the environment of basic restaurant service,” said Andre Holmes, who completed the course before graduating in 2014. Today he is kitchen manager at Mike’s American, a restaurant in Springfield, Virginia.
“You get to go through all of the roles of a restaurant including serving, preparation, sanitation and even management," Holmes said. "It also applies enough pressure so you actually feel the stress that can go along with the mistakes and struggles of every day restaurant life where you never know what could happen, yet keeps you safe in a learning environment. Participating in theme dinners at Café Laura was the closest experience to what I actually do on a daily basis now.”
The menus are centered around student-selected themes, from “Mardi Gras: A Rendezvous on Bourbon Street” to “Under the Tuscan Sun.” The meals feature fine cuisine, from seafood etouffee to pear and gorgonzola striped ravioli.
Through planning and presenting the theme dinners, students learn the various steps of successful restaurant management.