Bevier Café and Spice Box provide lessons in healthy food and business
By Alexis Terrell, News Bureau Intern
Two students in the Quantity Foods Laboratory, wearing white chef coats and hats, their hands caked in caramelized onions, roasted almonds and teriyaki sauce, stare uncertainly into the giant bowl of ingredients they’ve been mixing. “Does it look good or nasty?” freshman Kandace Roberson of Chicago asks guest chef Jesse Quinonez as she helps prepare for that evening’s Spice Box meal. “Would you eat it?” Quinonez asks. “Yes.” “Then keep mixing.” The Spice Box, along with Bevier Café, is a student-run restaurant on the UI campus. Showcasing the talents of senior hospitality-management majors, the Spice Box serves two- and four-course gourmet meals on Friday and Tuesday evenings in the spring. Students enrolled in the junior-level “Food Production and Service” course run Bevier Café, open weekdays for breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks. “What sets our Hospitality Management program apart is that we offer in-house, practical experience, and most schools send their students out to other restaurants,” said Jill North, teaching associate and director of the Spice Box and Bevier Café. “It’s more helpful and a safer environment to learn.” In “Fine-Dining Management,” affiliated with the Spice Box, each senior is responsible for planning, staffing and executing a financially viable fine-dining meal to be served to the public. With the help of a guest chef and freshmen enrolled in “Introduction to Hospitality Management,” the Spice Box often serves up to 160 guests a night for an average of $14 to $26 a meal. “These are fine-dining experiences people can’t get from other places in Champaign-Urbana or the surrounding area,” said Marla Todd, coordinator for external and alumni relations in the department of food science and human nutrition. “You have to go a couple hours away to get the experience and variety you’re going to get at the Spice Box.”
Student meal managers at the Spice Box, on the second floor of Bevier Hall, have planned meals for the current semester on themes ranging from Colonial American to French Rivieran to Mediterranean cuisine. Senior Janice Kim of Northbrook, Ill., chose Inspirations From the Orient as her Spice Box theme, with dishes such as crab rangoon and miso-glazed salmon. “I was so nervous I only slept an hour last night,” Kim said on the day of her meal. As the phone continued to ring for reservations minutes before the first seating began at 5:30 p.m., Kim gave last-minute driving instructions to guests in between shouting plating instructions to students. “I like dealing with food more than people,” Kim said. With more than 140 reservations to fill over the course of four seatings, Kim dealt with much more on her night as manager of the Spice Box. An oven exploded earlier in the day, the steak skewers caught fire because someone forgot to soak them, and servers mistimed their courses, which led to problems keeping the plated food warm, Kim said. “Like a real restaurant, anything can happen,” North said. In a previous semester, one student chose to flambé bananas tableside. While the student had counted on a gorgeous presentation, the student had not planned on setting off the smoke detectors. Everyone had to leave the restaurant. “Luckily, nothing did catch on fire,” North said. “We try to prevent things like that.” By the time students are coordinating their Spice Box meals, they’ve had the experience of fully managing Bevier Café. “Experience is the best part of the job,” said junior Carly Steinman, who is part of the student team running Bevier Café. Their three big goals are cost control, customer service and quality, she said. “We always try to improve food quality, like with batch cooking. We don’t cook everything at once and let it sit.”
Each student at Bevier Café works 10 hours a week and is graded according to a daily checklist of factors, including how they deal with food temperatures, sanitation, preparation and clean up. Students rotate every two weeks through five stations: management, hot foods, pantry, bakery and scullery. A line forms as the doors to Bevier Café open for lunch at 11:30 a.m. Junior Jessica Klein of West Brooklyn, Ill., greets customers from behind the salad bar. “I can make you a salad or sandwich however you want it,” Klein says. Bevier Café serves daily lunch entrees starting from $4.25, with a variety of vegetarian entrees and a la carte soups, salads and desserts. A lot of menu changes were made after Executive Chef Jean-Louis Ledent was hired in the fall of 2004, North said. “Before I came, every day was something fried,” Ledent said. “I like fried foods, but not on everything and every day. Now we roast a lot, steam a lot and sauté more.” “The trend is toward healthier food,” North said. But it’s not all about food. “We’re training managers, so the business side is very important.” Students run the Spice Box and Bevier Café as self-sustaining businesses and are expected to make a profit, she said. Many of the students majoring in hospitality management or dietetics have some experience in the field but not everyone does. “If you come in blank, you definitely can learn,” said Kevin Grace, a junior hospitality-management major from Blue Island, Ill. “It’s a pretty small major, so everyone knows each other and helps each other out.” Graduation rates within the program are high, and most graduates go into food service, catering or restaurant management, North said. The students may serve up to 180 guests in one day at Bevier Café. Daily menus are online and posted outside the Café, on the second floor of Bevier Hall, at the corner of Goodwin Avenue and Gregory Street. Music professor William Heiles has been eating at Bevier Café for 20 years. “The food is good, the service is nice, and they have excellent desserts,” he said. “I don’t get tired coming here every day.”
Students running Bevier Café usually don’t get tired either. Yes, the traditional chef hats slip off easily. The hours are long. The scullery is hot. But the food … “The food is always the best part,” said junior Jeff Matuszewski of Woodridge, Ill., who had been on dish-washing duty for two days at Bevier Café. He looked over at his classmate Grace, sitting with a full tray of food – chicken noodle soup, charbroiled Italian sausage, wild rice, fried okra and fresh fruit. “Are you sure you can eat all that?” Matuszewski asked. “Yes,” Grace said. “Get your own.”
Next course Facelift, equipment upgrade needed for kitchen, restaurants By Alexis Terrell, News Bureau Intern Aging equipment and additional customers have heightened the need to raise funds for two student-run restaurants on the UI campus. The department of food science and human nutrition is campaigning to raise $1.5 million to refurbish Bevier Halls’ Quantity Foods Facility, including the Spice Box, Bevier Café and the kitchen they share. “The facilities are from the 1950s, so a lot of the equipment is 30 years old if not 50,” said Jill North, teaching associate and director of the Spice Box and Bevier Café. “Unreliable equipment and outdated décor can hurt the students’ profitability.” Students enrolled in Food Science and Human Nutrition 340 and FSHN 443 operate Bevier Café and the Spice Box. Major renovations are planned for the interiors of both establishments. The department is working with a UI architecture alumnus to design a more efficient layout for the entrances, seating areas and serving lines. “The speed at which we can serve is not ideal,” said Greg Knott, assistant to the head and business manager for FSHN. “The line is a bottleneck.” A larger volume of customers adds to the problem. The average Café attendance for the first week of classes has doubled in the last two years from 80 to 160 patrons. Bevier Café staff attributes this to higher food quality since Executive Chef Jean-Louis Ledent was hired in the fall of 2004. “Two years ago they made salmon loaves, and that food doesn’t exist anymore,” Ledent said. “Now they’re exposed to cream sauces and demi-glaze, salmon and flank steak, pesto and panini. We make do, but with more money, we will be able to expose them to more variety and modern trends.” Renovations will be done in stages as the money comes in, Knott said. Funding will come entirely through donations and not the university. “The Spice Box and Café are self-sustaining,” Knott said. “They pay for their own supplies, and whatever profit they make is reinvested back into the program.” Money already has been used for new tables and chairs in the Spice Box, as well as a new grill for the kitchen. A new oven moved to the top of the wish list to replace a 1968 model that recently broke down. Also, the facility lacks a modern point-of-sale computer system, found in small and large restaurants, to handle financial reports and help keep inventory. Roughly $250,000 has been raised for the project through individual and corporate sponsors, said Marla Todd, coordinator for external and alumni relations for FSHN. Recent events such as the Beaujolais Nouveau Celebration and the Winter Carnival added nearly $5,000. Another fundraising event at Bevier Hall is being planned for the late spring or summer of 2006 highlighting fresh, local ingredients. Individuals can still sponsor tables and chairs in the Spice Box for $150 to $250, Todd said. In return, a name of the donor’s choice will be engraved on a brass plaque affixed to the furniture. Raising money is the main goal, but cash isn’t the only help needed, Todd said. “In-kind donations are appreciated.”
Interested in donating? Contact Kim Morton, director of development, at kamorton@illinois.edu or 312-575-7805, for more information.
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