McHenry County College (MCC) has opened, according to the Northwest Herald this morning, a new student-run restaurant, called Slàinte. It’s located on the campus of MCC in the employee dining room.
The function of the College is to educate students. Has it gone too far by creating a student-run restaurant?
Slàinte could be viewed as competing with Crystal Lake Restaurants, which employ chefs, cooks, wait staff, busboys and many other persons. Owners of those restaurants pay healthy taxes of all types, including property taxes that support MCC.
Rather than establishing a restaurant on campus, utilizing taxpayer-supported building and equipment and charging prices that don’t seem much less than a restaurant in Crystal Lake
Do students working in the campus restaurant get paid? Do they wait tables and scrub pots and pans as part of their coursework? If they get paid, did the College then create work opportunities? And where did that money come from?
I myself don’t plan to “dine out” at MCC, where the average check per person is expected to run $20.00. If I’m going to dine out, I’ll go to a community restaurant! Otherwise, those places will be shuttered, and then the two-year college graduates won’t have places to work!
Jones Meat Locker is Woodstock Crystal Lake
Other high-tech, college-level, $100 buzzwords sneaked into the article; ex., “carbon footprint”, capstone, executive chef, the new “applied science culinary management” associate degree. Huh?
And did you know that many of the MCC classes in the culinary arts education program are taught at Woodstock North High School
4 comments:
While blogs are meant for giving opinions, it would be nice if you actually had any real information about the program. All the students in the program are going for a degree or a certificate that will enable them to actually get a job in the culinary field. Without experience, today's economy will not enable them to even have a shot. A student run restaurant allows these students an opportunity to gain the experience neccessary to get a foot in the door. The program is so successful that yes, they are using facilities at MCC and local high schools. This is normal for many community college programs for various reasons. MCC runs GED courses all over the county, is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not! MCC is there to educate students in all areas. A culinary program is giving the residents of McHenry County the chance to learn about a field that can not be outsourced. I choose to be part of their education and dine with them at least once this semester. You are free to spend your money anywhere you wish.
My name is Cheryl Heiden, and I am the student chef appearing on page 1 of section B in the Northwest Herald article you reference and I am here to educate you and answer your questions.
As a student, I do not belive the college has gone too far by opening a culinary student-run restaurant. It offers practical experience from menu creations for culinary students to customer service for management and hospitality students. Everyone "employed" pays their own class fees in addition to their own taxes if working outside the school.
Our classes are primarily run in the evening which is when restaurants want the most help, leaving us unable to obtain an internship, or job share in addition to classes. Opening this school has combined working in a restaurant and classes in one. Moreover it provides us the opportunity to work with our teaching chef who can guide us through challenges related to coursework. Additionally, we treat this as a class, we do not get paid to work, on the contrary we pay to work and learn.
We purchase meat from Jones Meat Locker because it is the vendor from which we can buy bulk such as primal cuts versus buying fabricated cuts which would be the same as buying individual steaks for instance. Bulk is obviously less expensive and we also further our culinary skills by performing basic butchering procedures. This is "sustainable" because we (the student chefs) are aware of all scraps and can use them for other purposes, i.e. broths, stews etc.
The "buzzwords" you mention can easily be found in any dictionary if you are having trouble with their meanings, in addition to finding course descriptions in the MCC Catalog.
Yes some courses have utilized Woodstock North's facility because the school was built with a full culinary certified restaurant kitchen.
Lastly, the restaurant is only open at 5:30pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, days not likely to steal business from community dining locations. Honestly, it does not compete with the already existing MCC cafeteria either.
I hope I have been able to answer your questions and feel free to ask more about this matter. McHenry county should be happy to have a "fine-dining" restaurant for under $20 a person. Some other fine dining locations hardly offer a single dish under $20.
Thank you, Amy and Cheryl, for your comments.
You've made me curious why Woodstock D-200 School District would build a new high school with "full culinary certified restaurant kitchen."
I think it is wonderful to have students make the dinners from scratch. Some of those so called deluxe restaurants have frozen food in bags. Some day you may find at your favorite restaurant a new item on the menu that came from one of those graduated MCC students. If the school didn't have the "full culinary kitchens" how else would they learn to prepare food at the next Chateau Louis restaurant?
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