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Photos by Leah Emura/The Advocate
Students and faculty members eating in the Jazz Café Tuesday during Café Tuesday. The next Café Tuesday is April 24.
Hospitality and Tourism to host Café Tuesdays during spring term
The Advocate
A three-course menu was offered by the Hospitality and Tourism program to students and staff in Tuesday afternoon's first Café Tuesday luncheon of the year in the Jazz Café.
First year Hospitality and Tourism students greeted and tended to the patrons while second year students honed their skills in the kitchen.
Café Tuesday will take place every two weeks for the remainder of spring term. These events immerse Hospitality and Tourism students in a real restaurant experience.
According to Arielle McClung, first year Hospitality and Tourism student, around 24 students worked the "front of the house." McClung served as the manager for this week's café.
McClung is currently enrolled in HT105, Catering, restaurant and food management: Concept to Customers.
"We are in a 100 level class so first year students are all doing the front of the house, then second year students are doing the cooking because they have the required classes." McClung said.
"They're the back of the house which means they cook all the food and we just serve it…we deal with the customers." McClung said.
Jolynn Johnson, another Hospitality and Tourism student, said, "There are dishwashers and bussers and a whole bunch of behind the scenes, you don't even see how hard they're working."
"We all major in Hospitality and Tourism, which there is a lot of different fields in the industry, restaurant and food and serving and catering is all kind of one area -- the culinary area. And then there's hotels, management, travel - which is all in HT, and this (Café Tuesday) would be the food and beverage, restaurant management area." McClung said.
According to Johnson who served as a hostess, they served around 55 people, including those who had reservations and several walk–ins.
Johnson explained how the students received their roles. "We drew numbers this last time to pick, Arielle and I had the first two numbers so she picked manager and I picked Hostess so we could run the front of the house type stuff, I'm not sure if we're going to do it that way every time or have some kind of rotation," Johnson said.
Hospitality and Tourism instructor Jason Elliot, serves as the chef for Café Tuesdays; although he does not do any of the cooking, he ensures that the students do all of the cooking themselves.
Elliot teaches the HT237 class, Culinary Arts: Restaurant and banquet operations.
"I create the menu and then I let the students do all of the culinary math and that kind of stuff in regards to getting the recipes to the volume that we need," Elliot said.
"I try to make (the menu) to where it's going to challenge the students, so each café class the students rotate spots so they're either working the salad side or the starter side or the hot food or the dessert and they're making the dressings in house, they're producing (the end) product from start to finish," Elliot said.
"A lot of it also is cooking techniques that they're going to utilize as they're preparing. Today (Tuesday) was a lot of sautéing compared to next week, might be a lot of roasting or broiling," he said.
According to Elliot, he had 11 students working in the back, three of which were doing the salad station and pantry station (cold foods), four people doing the hot foods or entrees, and four working on desserts.
"It's an experience for everyone to get to know different positions and learn something new," Johnson said.
The menus that Elliot prepares will always have a starter or a salad, a vegetarian entree, a chicken entree, a third entrée option and a dessert.
This week's menu featured a northwest themed-salad with hazelnuts and gorgonzola for $5, the entrees included potato crusted salmon, garlic and sage roasted chicken, and vegetarian mushroom and asparagus risotto all priced at $6 and a pear tart with fresh cinnamon cream for $4.
Menu items are available for purchase separately aor one may choose three for $10.
During Tuesday's café, an alarm went off around 11:45 a.m., evacuating the building.
Because of the evacuation, according to Johnson, it set them behind as they were busy seating people and then they had to evacuate and shut down the kitchen when they had already started prepping entrees and salads.
"It really slowed us down so we had to heat everything back up, get everyone back in there in their spots. But everyone did remarkably well. Everyone is pulling together and trying really hard and working together and it's been pretty awesome." Johnson said Tuesday.
According to Elliot it was horrible, "we already had three or four people's tables in and had started cooking for those and then all the sudden it was 'Okay leave.' And I was like 'We have food cooking.'
"Because of the fire drill (evacuation) I turned around when we came back and all of the sudden the restaurant was completely full and so I have to step in, in certain spots and help but my goal is to make them understand what all goes into working that station," said Elliot.
Seating for Café Tuesday is available between 11:30 a.m. and noon. To make reservations call 503-491-7230 or email [email protected]. They ask callers to leave a name, phone number and number of people in the party.
The next café will be April 24. Remaining dates for Café Tuesdays are May 8, 22 and June 5.
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