Chapter 10: Food and Beverage Training Facilities within Hospitality Education:
Chapter 10: Food and Beverage Training Facilities within Hospitality Education: Operational and managerial nightmares
Ryan P. Smith and Murray Mackenzie
Ryan P. Smith, San Francisco State University
Murray Mackenzie, University of Nevada
Abstract
Food and beverage training facilities are not easy to operate and maintain. This chapter looks at four full-service style restaurant training facilities that have been used at different universities and the positives and negatives associated with each method. There is no “best” method for a training facility in university education, but the purpose of all training facilities should be to teach managerial and soft skills that are best learned through practical experience.
Introduction
While formal food and beverage (F&B) university educational training programs date back over 100 years, the volume and number of programs have significantly increased in the last 30 years. Traditionally, programs are situated in autonomous schools, colleges within a university, or as sub-departments in schools or colleges of business. Traditionally most hospitality departments/schools/colleges have integrated a practical training component into their F&B programs. This chapter will focus on F&B training facilities that when in use, function as a full-service restaurant with a kitchen and service element to them. There are other training facilities that are used primarily for cookery skills, wine tasting, or bar training; however, these will not be addressed as a full-service restaurant tend to be the most common.
Running F&B training facilities requires a significant amount of funding and depending on the model adopted, may operate at a profit or loss. Training facilities are broken down into two major categories, a “laboratory” (lab) and a “restaurant”. Both types of operations generally serve the university in some capacity by providing a place to dine. The operational hours and main objective will vary. A lab-type facility has clearly defined intended learning outcomes, where the lab is built around meeting those outcomes. It typically loses money, as it is not designed to generate revenue. In addition, it is only in use when a class or course needs to meet to obtain the learning outcomes. It is traditionally closed outside of class use. Alternately, a “restaurant” training facility ideally, should also be designed around a clear set of learning objectives. However, the goal is to generate revenue or be revenue-neutral. Typically the operating hours are consistent throughout the year regardless of whether the classes are held or not. Therefore, restaurants typically need paid staff (not faculty) to continue operations. Often though, this goal is unattainable and these restaurants too run at a loss, albeit at a smaller loss than labs. Larger universities may have both training labs and training restaurants. A number of universities have debated recently whether it is necessary to incorporate F&B training into a degree-gran