Students in the Professional Cook 1 (PC 1) Program at Walnut Grove Secondary will be continuing on with its annual One Season Restaurant but it will look a little different.
The student-led restaurant is adapting to provincial COVID-19 health and safety restrictions and finding a creative way to meet learning requirements and get hands on experience pleasing customers.
The students will be offering a hot, three course meal to go, and a new meal kit feature.
“We’re excited to do this. This is what we’ve worked the whole year from September towards, is opening a restaurant in some capacity. This year instead of having the public come in and dine in house, we’re actually offering a fully to go menu. We are doing two meal kits per week and one 3-course menu per week that will be prepared hot and picked up from our guests,“ says Laura Dawe, Program Instructor.
Dawe says One Season is an important requirement for student learning and fosters professional development.
“The students are still going to get to see the customers that come at a safe distance to see their food. This is huge. This is what our industry is about: serving to the public. You know it just brings a different pace to the kitchen for us; it teaches them that sense of urgency and the reality that certain things have deadlines that have to be completed in the kitchen. These students are your future chefs in this industry and I think for these kids, they’re grade 12 students that are working until 7:30 Monday to Thursday every week to work towards their education and get that start,” explains Dawe.
One Season Restaurant and One Season Preps will begin March 30, 2021 and end on May 20, 2021, with some blackout dates due to holidays. Weekly menus and meal kit options will be posted on the program’s webpage here.
This story has been reproduced with permission from School District 35 (Langley). The original posting can be found here.