By Carissa Beckwith

The CITS Culinary Arts class has an interesting project as a final—instead of an exam, they designed and ran a “one night only” restaurant.
“Over the course of the past four months, our students have been learning all aspects of the restaurant business, and now it is time to put it to use,” said the Culinary Arts teacher, Mr. Vieths.
The students in the Culinary Arts class will be divided into two teams, Front of House and Back of House. Each team will design their own restaurant, which they will then run on the nights of Jan. 12 or 14 at the PACC in Proctor. While one team runs their restaurant, the other team will serve as waiters and waitresses. Then the next night, they will switch.
One team has decided to do an Asian Style restaurant. The other team will be presenting a breakfast and dessert restaurant. Each group will design an unique menu that features versions of food they have prepared in class this past semester. Also, each group will decorate the PACC according to their theme.
Several students expressed that they were both excited and nervous about the upcoming event. Sam Carlson, a junior, remarked, “It’s like the feelings you get when you go up in front of a hundred people.”
About 130 people are expected to attend the restaurants.
“It should be interesting because it’s the first time we’ve done it,” said Mr. Vieths. “It should be a fun night.”
The event is completely donation-based. The menus the students create will show the food cost along with the restaurant cost of each item. However, the money donated will be completely decided by the patrons. All proceeds will go to cover food cost for this event and to help sustain the culinary arts program.
Chefs from the region will be attending the event.