Kennesaw State culinary students created a pop-up restaurant for their capstone class on Friday, Oct. 12, in the Hospitality House on the Kennesaw campus.
The Culinary Sustainability and Hospitality program at KSU provides a Quantity Food Management course that uses an active approach to the restaurant experience. Rich Matthews, a lecturer for the course, said that the capstone is meant to mimic real restaurant operations and management that the students will use to further their careers.
The students are separated into pairs and assigned to create a restaurant concept, and the students are responsible for the conception of the restaurant, developing a menu around that concept, researching recipes and the costs of making the recipes and developing a sales forecast that will determine the price of the ticket for the public to come and eat, Matthews said.
The pop-up restaurant was a Jamaican and Caribbean theme called “Xaymacia.” Matthews said that the idea for the theme of the restaurant came from students Madeline Meinert, who worked in the front of the house, and Chelsea Curry, who worked in the back of the house.
The rest of the students all worked to help the restaurant run smoothly, from helping prep the plates to bussing tables after each dish. Matthews said that volunteers also occasionally work at pop-up restaurants hosted by culinary students.
The dinner included starters such as callaloo pineapple and brown rice salad or spiced corn soup. The main course was a choice of brown chicken stew, jerk chicken and pumpkin waffles or jerk tempeh and pumpkin waffles, Matthews said.
The Quantity Food Management class is holding a different themed restaurant every Friday until Nov. 9. The last event is called “Sitaria,” and Matthews said that this will serve as the main event because the food is going to be a culmination of what they have learned over the semester. The students are expecting over 100 people to be in attendance at this last event.
The restaurant was hosted inside of the Hospitality House, an old residential house on campus. Matthews said that the house is a classroom by day, but by night, when they hold events, the culinary students turn the house into a functioning kitchen and dining area. Once the event is over, the students clean and prepare the building for classes the following week.
The upcoming pop-ups include a Greek-themed restaurant on Oct. 19, a southern cooking restaurant on Oct. 26, German-themed restaurant on Nov. 2, a Game of Thrones-themed restaurant on Nov. 9 and a “Sitaria” restaurant on Nov. 30.
All of the events are open to the public and tickets can be bought on the KSU Department of Culinary Sustainability and Hospitality website.
