Students host pop-up restaurants on campus

Alexis Schindler

Staff writer

aschindler1@murraystate.edu

Graphic by Sara Howell/The News

The Oakley Dining Room opened its doors to Murray State students and the community to enjoy the first student-prepared, pop-up restaurant style meal of the semester.

Each spring semester, senior students majoring in nutrition and dietetics are required to enroll in the meal management capstone class. This class combines everything the students have learned throughout their undergraduate studies about “nutrition, food science, food preparation and business management,” according to Murray State’s website.

This spring semester there are seven students enrolled in the course, so there will be seven meals served in the students’ pop-up restaurant. The pop-up restaurant meals will be served every Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. up until May 1, excluding the week of Spring Break.

A different student will manage the pop-up restaurant each week and will bring their own restaurant theme and menu to the table. The other students in the class will help with meal preparation and food service.

Karen Byrd, nutrition, dietetics and food management professor, and her colleague Josie Bryant are supervising the students during this project.

“The intent is that it is supposed to build on all their other courses, even the nutrition aspect of it,” Byrd, director of the program, said. “It really helps them realize how challenging it is to actually plan a menu that meets the nutritional requirements recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It builds on marketing, business, food and science, nutrition and clinical nutrition courses they take, so all of that prior education is kind of culminated in this project.”

Students are in charge of determining the cost of ingredients and decorations they need for meals. They use that cost to determine meal prices.  They also have to manage nutritional factors like calories and sodium content when creating their meals.

“Actually getting to apply their knowledge in a setting where there are people that are not just their peers is so important,” Bryant said. “It just kind of puts that finishing touch on what they have been learning.”

The Murray State Homegrown Ingredients effort requires each student to use one homegrown ingredient in their meal. The nutrition and dietetics program partnered with the Hutson School of Agriculture for this effort.

Sarah Frederickson, senior from Louisville, Kentucky, thinks this is going to be a great experience. 

“We are putting a lot of hard work into these meals and we really hope that they’re good for everyone that comes,” Frederickson said. “I’m excited to see the culmination of all my work coming together.”

Frederickson said there is more effort behind the scenes that she did not realize when the seniors before her were doing the project, and that it is cool to get to see the whole process behind the creation.

In order to attend one of these meals, one must register for the meal of their choosing on the Oakley Dining Room website. Spots are going fast, and the program’s supervisors are expecting the rest of the spots to be filled up rather quickly.

Guests attending the meals are asked to park at the Curris Center, and the University asks that guests register their cars at https://murraystate.nupark.com/portal. Also, payment for the meals must be given in the form of cash or check only.

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