Schools

Oswego East Students Serve Up Experience With Simulated Restaurant

Students in Susan Stiker's restaurant management classes turned a conference room at Oswego East High into a restaurant on Thursday, to get a feel for what food service is really like.

While students at dined on the usual cafeteria fare Thursday morning, faculty were given a rare treat: a full Mexican meal, prepared by the school’s restaurant management classes.

The menu: chicken tortilla soup, followed by Cuban pork loin with Mexican rice, cactus salad and cumin potato salad, a salsa bar (including guacamole made fresh at your table), tres leches cake (sort of a yellow cake made with three types of milk), and margarita punch.

And while teachers dug in, savoring every bite, they caught no glimpse of the often-frantic preparations going on behind the scenes.

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Susan Stiker heads up the restaurant management class at Oswego East, and she runs a tight ship. Thursday’s event followed the rules of a real restaurant—students had only a few minutes to prepare the meals, get them arranged on plates and trays, and get them out to their customers. 

“Tick tock, tick tock,” Stiker would say, darting back and forth between food prep stations in the large industrial kitchen used for these simulations. Stiker’s been running these classes for six years, and you can tell—she knows just what has to happen and when for the meal to be successful.

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Stiker said her classes put on three of these restaurant events each year. (Thursday’s was the second of this year, following an Italian menu last month.) A total of 32 students, all juniors and seniors, pitch in. It’s one of several special events students participate in, including competitions sponsored by the National Restaurant Association.

And it’s a high-pressure restaurant situation, Stiker said.

“I tell them, if you’re scared to be here, you should be,” she said, chuckling. “I’ve even mentioned Chef (Gordon) Ramsey. But just once.”

Restaurant management courses at Oswego East often lead to careers in food service, Stiker said, and many of her students on Thursday said they hoped to follow that path.

Chris Cooper, a junior from Aurora, said he hopes to make cooking his career, and one day own a restaurant. He said he’s been interested in food service for about seven years, and the first meal he ever cooked on his own consisted of scrambled eggs. But he’s come a long way since then.

Robert Davis, a junior from Oswego, said he hopes to take the skills he’s learning in this course and use them to help his mother, who owns a restaurant.

And Courtney Boeding, a junior from Aurora, said she’s been cooking since the 8th grade, and hopes to continue.

“I love food, all kinds of food,” she said. “Making it is fun, and I’d love to serve it to people who love it as much as me.”

Count school counselors Julie Allen and Karla Hoinkes among those people. They, along with college center manager Wendi Weber, took in a meal Thursday, and had nothing but good words for the students’ efforts.

“It’s absolutely delicious,” Allen said.

“I’ve never had cactus before, but the cactus with the pork is amazing,” Weber enthused.

That’s music to Stiker’s ears. She said she’s seen her students go on to successful careers in the industry, and many of them have come back to thank her. She seemed to revel in her job well done on Thursday.

“Cooking is a gift,” she said. And then, turning toward her students, she resumed handing out assignments and orders.

"You've got 10 minutes! Tick tock!"


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