Eatery offers specialty cuisines -- takeout to fine dining

Hotel students, facing camera from left, senior Doug Varsano and juniors David Stenson and Lori Kowalczyk serve a customer a takeout meal March 9 during Steakhouse/BBQ week, which ends today, at TCAB in the Statler Hotel. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

The Staggering Cowboy, Tokyo Joe, Soul Food Cafe and Arabian Night are the names of some upcoming theme nights being offered in the revamped Statler Hotel's student-run Terrace Cafe, Mondays through Thursdays from 6:15 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Formerly called the Terrace Cafe and Bistro, TCAB, which is open to the public, now stands for Themes, Cuisines and Beyond. Each week the 120 students in the required course HADM 335: Restaurant Management offer a different cuisine in the cafe, such as BBQ/steakhouse, seafood, American regional and Mexican/Southwestern. Each night has a theme and a different style of service to reflect today's dining trends: quick service/takeout, midscale/family, fine dining or casual.

"Students in the course choose a night within a theme, and in teams of three, do all the planning for a night in the restaurant," said Barbara Lang, lecturer and the course's instructor.

The students research the cuisine in industry publications and develop a menu with recipes; marketing, budget and food purchasing plans; staffing, motivation and beverage concerns; a web page for their night's menu; and concepts for decor and service for their night.

Lang noted that the new theme curriculum is intended to simulate a real restaurant environment and incorporates a state-of-the-art cash register computerized system that allows waiters to input the orders and the cooks to print them out in the kitchen. Future use of the system will integrate the forecasting, budgeting computer program students now use with the cash register system.

After each step of planning is approved, student teams put their plans into action.

Senior Chris Johnsen, 22, after completing his night of preparing Thai cuisine on a family/midscale night, said the experience was the "pinnacle" of his Cornell hotel administration career. "I had to combine and utilize all the knowledge and information from previous course work and apply it in an active restaurant environment."

Reservations for TCAB can be made by calling 254-2500. Walk-ins are accepted when possible. Entrees range from $4.50 to $13 and dinner is served from 6:15 to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday, throughout the semester. The Cornell Card is accepted.

To see menus, visit the TCAB web site http://courses.sha.cornell.edu/tcab/.

The remaining themes and cuisines for the spring semester are: