Kennesaw State culinary students hosted a pop-up restaurant on Friday, Feb. 23, at Fire Station 26 in Kennesaw to show appreciation to the firefighters that serve KSU’s campuses.
The Culinary Sustainability and Hospitality program at KSU offers a capstone class called “Quantity Food Management” where students develop a restaurant concept and work in teams to execute their ideas.
A management team of three students developed the plan, which included the menu, decor and recruitment of volunteers. Classmates from culinary classes and general volunteers helped execute the event.
The student managers, Willard Turner, Cheryse Carter and Liana Lipinsky, worked on the project since the beginning of the spring 2018 semester, and they saw their ideas come to life Friday evening at the fire station.
Chef Rich Matthews, professor of the “Quantity Food Management” class and project supervisor, spoke about the challenges of hosting the event at the station.
“This particular event the team is offering to Fire Station 26 as a thank you from KSU because this is the fire station that makes the calls to our campus,” Matthews said. “The three students, Liana, Cheryse and Will have conceived of this, they divide up the responsibilities and tonight is the night where it actually happens.”
The menu featured fried green tomatoes with red pepper aioli and crumbled blue cheese, pecan-crusted chicken breast with a cherry reduction, sweet potato soufflé and chocolate-pecan pie for dessert.
The culinary program’s upcoming pop-up restaurant events will be hosted on March 25 by Two Birds Taphouse and April 15 by Trackside Grill. Both events will be open to the public to attend.
