Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Taking reservations — Student-run restaurant back in business
Culinary students get first-hand experience at on-campus eatery
PLYMOUTH » Happily, the student-run restaurant at
Central Montco Technical High School is back in business.
A soft reopening has allowed a handful of local foodies to dine at CMTHS’s cozy in-house eatery, but the school’s young staffers are ready to welcome the public-at-large to breakfast and lunch sittings beginning March 9 and 10. Breakfast reservations are available between 8:15 and 9 a.m.; lunch reservations, between 12:15 and 1 p.m.
Need to punch a time clock in the A.M. or finish lunch inside an hour? No worries. Chef-Instructor Randy D’Angelo says patrons seated at 8:15 can be out the door by 9 and promises equally speedy service at lunch. Not that CMTHS’s bill of fare resembles fast food in the usual sense. In fact, although COVID-19 forced the dining room’s closure for nearly two years, it clearly did nothing to lower the quality of the dishes on offer.
According to Culinary Instructor Jarrett Young, students take turns composing menus, and the lineup changes every two weeks. Lunch options feature a selection of appetizers and salads, three entrees — typically chicken, beef or seafood — and dessert. Recent Mexican choices were a big hit, and at press time, Italian-themed Osso Buco and chicken cacciatore were in the works.
Midday entrees occasionally reach $10, but the majority average $6-$7; appetizers, $3-$6; and dessert, $3-$5. Breakfast — traditional
favorites that run the gamut from yogurt and fruit to eggs, French toast and pancakes — usually cost $7 to $10.
“All homemade and fresh,” Young emphasizes.
That said, there’s a lot more than fork-tender boeuf bourguignon and lemony, garlicky chicken taking shape in CMTHS’s culinary arts wing.
“Having a restaurant
here on campus lets us give these young, aspiring chefs industry experience in a safe environment,” D’Angelo says. “It shows them what it means to cook under pressure…the need for having speed, being organized, putting all that together and getting the food out under those conditions. That sense of urgency. And they need that because culinary school and working in a professional kitchen are two different things… two completely different worlds.”
Ditto remote learning and in-person practice. Pivoting to virtual instruction at the height of the pandemic was necessary to meet safety protocols. But these days, CMTHS culinary staffers are working hard to catch up students who’ve missed out on the day-to-day experience of being in a functioning kitchen with trained mentors.
“So, one of the challenges we’ve had was the need to take a step back and reteach some of the skills students learned two years ago,” Young says. “Teaching or doing a demonstration on Zoom is a lot different from being in the kitchen, so we’ve taken it slow — getting the students acclimated to being back in the kitchen, re-teaching them how to develop a menu, figuring out the food costs for each item on the menu.”
Kitchen-to-table efficiency is receiving particular attention.
“The pandemic limited the students’ experience with service, so we’ve been working on that,” Young says. “With breakfast especially, they need to quickly set up their stations and get ovens on, salamander on, grille on and orders from the kitchen to the table as quickly as possible.”
CMTHS’s catering program can be tailored for just about any occasion and further expands those skill sets, D’Angelo notes. Its several hot and cold breakfast plans range from $5.75 (“conference continental”) to $10.99 (“hot country breakfast”) per person. Lunches range from $7.99 (“salad buffet”) to $9.99 (“sandwich central”) per person. Extensive dinner, appetizers-snacks, desserts (including one-off specialty cakes) and beverage menus are also available.
“We can do private parties, church functions, sports booster events, corporate meetings…buffet, sit-down, off or on the (CMTHS) premises,” the CMTHS culinary pro adds. “With the catering, we can do nights, weekends, whatever people need.
“In general, our goal is offering the students as many opportunities as we can to work with the product…from doing the planning and making up