A Berkshire college has announced plans to create a new restaurant accommodating 26 people to teach students how to deliver "fine dining."
Newbury College has applied for planning permission to build the restaurant in the grounds of its Monks Lane Campus.
It is being funded by a government grant through West Berkshire Council and the food will be subsidised.
If permission is granted the restaurants is set to open in May 2013.
Bill Blythe, Newbury College finance director who is overseeing the project, said: "Our previous site had a restaurant, and after many requests for dining at the college we thought that it would be a fantastic opportunity to welcome in the local community, and will be a great experience for our learners."
He said students from various departments, including Foundation Learning and Hospitality and Catering, would be able to train within the restaurant.
The grant comes from the Education Funding Agency.
The restaurant would "make the fine dining experience affordable, especially during a financially tough times," he added.
In other news, Tuk U is opening a hamburger stand, so students can practice "would you like fries with that?"
ReplyDeleteOr maybe, for the more entrepreneurial, a food truck? One could actually have some fun with that, giving students a chance to dream up and experiment with various concepts, but I'm sure the food handling training/licensing/insurance would be a nightmare.
DeleteAs long as the main goal of the restaurant is to train students (rather than to feed them), I'll all for this. I suppose one could question whether such training belongs in a university (as opposed to a stand-alone culinary school), but as long as we're giving out business degrees, then hospitality is certainly a sector worth including in that training.
ReplyDeleteI'm also all for making healthy, tasty food available to students, but the extent to which some schools cater (literally) to sophisticated (or just picky) student tastes has gotten more than a bit excessive.
Newbury College is not a university. It is a further education college, which in the UK is the level below higher education. Most commonly for people aged 16-18 either taking pre-university courses (A Levels and the like) or more vocational ones such as in the culinary and hospitality sectors. Colleges like this having their own restaurants that act as both businesses and training opportunities is not new, or even rare. The FE college I went to had one and that was *mumble mumble* years ago.
ReplyDelete