Food Management Students Make the Grade at Refresh Café
Key Takeaways
ECPI food management students completed a capstone project managing campus cafés by creating menus, planning operations, and executing service. The students demonstrated precision by staying within 2% of food cost budgets while achieving 55% of weekly sales with specialty items.
- Students created entirely new menus and dining concepts from scratch for campus café takeovers
- Food costs were scaled from small recipes to serve hundreds while maintaining strict price limits
- Teams kept actual food costs within 2% of their projected budgets, showing exceptional planning
- Special menu items accounted for 55% of the week's café sales, demonstrating customer appeal
- This capstone exercise taught demand forecasting, scaling, profitability, and operational execution
The Assignment
Over the course of previous several weeks, the students had to create a formal plan, dining concept, and menu, as well as cost food and raw materials. Once completed, they had to begin testing and refining recipes. The result: the Ohana Café in Virginia Beach and Tuki-Tiki in Newport News, each offering exotic dishes like Tofu Long Rice Miso Soup with sweet onion, rice noodles, and bok choy; and Asian Braised Beef with coconut rice, green beans, carrots, red/yellow peppers, red onions, and toasted sesame seeds.
In many ways, this weeklong exercise is about precision and personality. Precision, in that students had to anticipate demand and prepare food accordingly. What’s more, they had to cost raw materials to accommodate the café’s price points and retain a profit. Personality, played an equally large role. “These students had to create a complete dining experience from scratch,” says Chef Doug Cooperman, the class’ advisor. “There was a tremendous amount of work involved which required plenty of delegation and, more importantly, teamwork.”
For student Lisa Lathrup, working in a team environment was a real learning experience.
“I have never had to do that sort of thing before,” she says. “Those cafés are small and to be successful, you have to be organized and work as one.”
Throughout their culinary studies, these students have spent a lot of time in the kitchen and the classroom. During this culmination of their capstone course, however, they came face-to-face with the customer. “Part of their grade is determined by how well they marketed this special menu,” says Chef Cooperman. “I call it the 10/5 rule. As the customer comes within 10 feet of the counter, you should be saying hello. Within five feet, you should be convincing them as to what they should order.”
So, How’d They Do?!
Ultimately, each student’s final grade is based on both individual and group performance. Specifically, faculty members evaluate based on:
- Peer Review – the specific takeaways and lessons-learned from successes and setbacks
- Accuracy of Costing Sheets – how close did the team get to the targeted profit margin?
- Professionalism – did their communications skills improve or detract from the stated goals?
- Concept Execution – how closely-aligned were the results with the expectations set forth in the initial plan?
- Team Milestones – of the eight planning documents required, how many were turned in on time?
Overall, Chef Cooperman says the students did a phenomenal job. The two teams kept food costs within two percent of their target and the special menus accounted for about 55 percent of the café’s overall sales for the week.
“The objective is not to seek perfection,” he says. “It’s to get them immersed in every facet of the operation. It’s not whether they make a mistake or not. Mistakes happen. It’s how you react that ultimately determines success or failure in the real world. That’s why exercises like these are so valuable.”
Are you interested in the business of culinary arts? Food service management could be the perfect fit for you. Contact ECPI University to learn more about earning a Bachelor of Science in Food Service Management—it could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!
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