The Food Service Operations Management students filled the Academic Complex kitchen with laughter, shouting and dishes clanging while being prepared.
Seniors in the Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management program can take the food service class. According to WKU’s class catalog website, it gives students the experience needed for restaurant preparation, budgeting and managing food operations.
Matthew VanSchenkhof, a Hospitality Management professor at WKU, said students in the class must participate in a student-led dining experience for their final grade. During this experience, students get the opportunity to plan a menu, cook and prepare meals open to guests.
The Food Service Operations Management class offered the dining experience four times during the semester: Oct. 24, Oct. 31, Nov. 7 and Nov. 14. The menu and theme changed each week.
Senior Emily Williams from Bowling Green said she compares the class to catering — they are divided into groups to serve around 70 people at a time. She said that they handle all shopping, budgeting and preparation work.
Senior Elise Lynch from Evansville, Indiana said the class spends the first half of the semester working on menus, budgeting and shopping for the meals. During the second half of the semester, she said they work on testing the menus, and preparing and serving the dinners.
Lynch said all of the students in the class have a position to fill during the dining experience. The back of the house prepares the food being served, maintains inventory and ensures the meals prepared have equal portions before being sent out. The front of the house seats the guests, ensures that the dining area is well taken care of and runs the food out to the customers.
“We typically have three managers for every meal, and the managers pick if the rest of the class is in the front of the house serving, or the back of the house,” Lynch said. “At first, I wasn’t on turkey cutting, I was working on other stuff back there and then Emily asked if I would like to cut turkey so I did; everyone is kind of everywhere.”
Senior Olivia Rovansek from Greenbrier, Tennessee worked as a runner during the last dinner on Nov. 14. She said it can be stressful to fill her role, but also rewarding to see people enjoying the food that everyone worked together to prepare.
Rovansek said that managing multiple tables can be hard, as there is often a delay between preparing food for different orders while waiting for the next plates to be ready. She said that this can create pressure, especially when customers are waiting, but it also provides a valuable new perspective on the challenges food service workers face.
Though food management may not be the desired career for some of the students, Williams said that the experience has provided valuable lessons to take forward as she enters the workforce.
“I want to go into the hotel side, not the restaurant side; this is not my thing,” Williams said. “There are a lot of great skills in the culinary side when you wanna progress up the line to corporate, they’re always looking at things like food and beverage experience.”
In honor of Thanksgiving approaching, the final dining experience was a four-course Thanksgiving meal. This meal featured pumpkin soup, corn with peppers, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, roasted turkey and pumpkin cheesecake.
Lexington native Shae Payton said she came with her family to enjoy the food prepared by the students, one of whom is her daughter. She shared that they had only positive feedback, complimenting the food and the centerpieces.
“We’ve had such a good time,” Payton said. “The pumpkin soup was very good, and I’m very excited about the pumpkin cheesecake.”
Despite the students’ hard work and stress during the dining experiences, Lynch said they enjoy the satisfaction that it brings afterward.
“Tasting the food is a nice bonus,” Lynch said. “But just hearing that everyone enjoys the food that we have worked so hard on gives me the satisfaction of knowing that we have done a good job.”
The Food Service Operations Management class, offered in the fall semester, hosts the dining experience yearly. According to WKU’s website, tickets are required to attend the experience. They can be purchased in the Department of Applied Human Sciences office every Thursday the week before meals take place. Prices vary depending on the plate being made.