Yikes! I'm in charge of

Introduction
As part of the Troy A. Howard Middle School Prevocational Program on the food service industry, Cafe 103 has been serving student-prepared lunches to the Troy A. Howard Middle School staff weekly for the past several years. Your work crew will be responsible for the successful operation of Cafe 103 from planning the menu to the final kitchen cleanup.  

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The Task
Your task is to serve a delicious meal to each of our customers during the three lunches on Thursday.  All the food must be successfully prepared and served in relaxing atmosphere. The menu has to be nutritious and delicious.  All food service sanitation and safety practices will be used at all times.

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The Process

Here's all the things your work crew needs to do:

• Brainstorm ideas for a balanced menu (one that adults would like) for approximately 20 staff members which includes: a main course, a side salad or side vegetable, a bread choice, and a "tempting" dessert (usually we only "tempt" 8 - 14 teachers to buy dessert!)

  Check out the section called: "Today's meal" on the website http://www.mealsforyou.com You might get an idea for your menu.

• Get approval of your menu from your Prevocational Program supervisor.
• Look in recipe books and on the internet for the recipes you will use.  Some of the sites you can use for recipes include:

  Websites that allow you to "scale" recipes to the number of servings you need and allow you to make a "shopping list" of ingredients:	Websites that are good sources for recipes (but do not automatically "scale" or make a "shopping list"):
  Meals for you.com (on this site, once you save the number of servings you usually need, it automatically scales your recipes.)	Virtual Cities.com You can get recipes contributed by over 3000 innkeepers, restaurants, and professional chefs
  All-Recipes.Com	Culinary Cafe
  You can do a search on the internet for other sites by using the keyword "recipes". There are many different features on these sites, including: menus of the day, menu planning, cooking videos, etc.	Epicurious.com Has a good recipe search and some recipes include photos. If you have the ability to watch videos on your computer, there are Technique Videos at this site.

• Check how many servings your recipe makes and "scale" it to make 20 servings (or more if you get more than 20 reservations.)
• If you use a recipe from a cookbook or a website that does not "scale", your work crew will have to "scale" the recipe using your math skills (your supervisor can help you) to the number of servings you need.
• Find, print or photocopy and laminate all the recipes you will need. Make sure you save the recipe in our "cookbook folder"; we get many requests for our recipes!
• With your "supervisor" estimate the cost of preparing this lunch. Then set the price of lunch. The price should be set between $2.50 to $3.50.
• After you have set the menu and find the recipes you need, use the computer template called Cafe Reservation Form to make this week's reservation form. If you do not have Microsoft Excel to open the reservation form, use this sample reservation form, fill-in by hand your menu choices. Print the reservation form of your choice, photocopy 30 pages, cut apart into individual forms and distribute a form to each staff member of our school by no later than Monday afternoon.  To save some time later, while you are making the reservation form, it is easy to "cut and paste" the entree and dessert choices onto the Cafe Order Form. If you do not have Microsoft Excel to open the reservation form, use this sample order form, fill-in by hand your menu choices. Make 10 photocopies and cut apart to make 30 individual order forms. Put them on the waitperson's clipboard for use on Thursday.
• Check our supplies for all the ingredients you need for your recipes. Make a shopping list of needed supplies. Determine which supplies need to be purchased on Friday and those that should wait until Tuesday to retain the freshness of the product. Assign a work crew to do the grocery shopping during either Friday's or Tuesday's community trip.

  Follow Food Service Sanitation Rules at all times!

  Example: Wash hands with hot, soapy water before handling food!

• You need to list all the jobs required to make this meal (including cleanup.) There are some jobs that are done every week (see List of Routine Jobs at Cafe 103) and some jobs that need to be done just for your lunch plans. Decide when each job needs to be finished. For example: Can you prepare part of the meal and freeze it without losing the quality of the food? Print and fill-in 5 (or more) copies of the List of Jobs for Cafe 103. Give a copy to the "supervisor" and post the list in the kitchen.
• Your work crew will assign each job to one of your own "workers" or another "work crew" and their "supervisor," If the job is at a time when the "worker" is not usually in their Pre vocation class time (for example: waitress on Thursday), get permission for that worker to leave the other location.
• Each day your work crew should work on the cafe jobs. Someone in your crew needs to check on the progress of the jobs assigned to other crews. If needed, make changes, to the list of jobs and/or reassign jobs.
• Remember to allow time for cleanup at the end of each work session.
• AND FINALLY ON THURSDAY, set up the kitchen and "restaurant " areas of Room 103 to allow for the smooth operation of Cafe 103 during the three lunch times.
• Your work crew should evaluate whether Cafe 103 was successful and offer suggestions to the next crew on how to improve CAFE 103. Go back to beginning of process section

  Follow Kitchen Safety Rules at all times!!!

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Evaluation

  Cafe 103, part of the Troy A. Howard Middle School Prevocational Program, is a hands-on activity that uses staff observation of students in action as the basis for evaluation. SUCCESS for students is considered as:

• able to follow directions of a "supervisor"
• able to work cooperatively with any "coworker"
• able to plan a cafe menu and find corresponding recipes
• able to create a shopping list
• able to plan the step-by-step jobs needed to be done
• able to prepare the recipes with basic cooking skills
• able to find use kitchen tools and equipment
• able to follow basic food service sanitation and safety rules
• able to cleanup kitchen, to return kitchen tools and equipment to their correct location
• able to do daily and final self evaluations of how the Cafe jobs were done

Note to Teachers: See the Teacher page for more information about evaluation.

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Conclusion

By following this step-by-step process for Cafe 103, you are on the path to learning how to plan, prepare, serve and cleanup after a meal for 20 or more people.Hopefully, you have, also, learned that the SECRET of SUCCESS is planning and working together!

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