Students
Our Place dining room is collaborative event between two classes in the Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts curriculums whereby food is produced and served for sale to the public during the class meeting times.
Students who are cooking and serving are doing so as lab hours in two required courses. Some students are very new to the tasks they are learning to perform and others have more proficiency. Not every student is yet in a position to be hired to be a server (or even bus person) in a white tablecloth restaurant or to be cooking at their assigned kitchen stations.
As they learn through their mistakes as well as their successes, the cost of the meal only covers the supplies used to create it. We ask that each guest fill out a comment card, rating their experience to assist student learning. Students in each class rotate through various positions including; server, student dining room manager, cashier, bus person, back waiter, chef of the day, grill, saute, dessert, soup, salad and dish room.
What is the Pineapple Guild?
The Pinapple Guild is a student club, open to all Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts students. It is has been operating to develop student professionalism, provide community service, raise funds for educational travel for over a decade. Students raise money to attend the National Restaurant Association Exposition in Chicago in May of each year. Two students are honored at a daylong Salute to Excellence event. This has been a wonderful opportunity for our students.
Past year events inlcuded: performing canned goods drives for Good Shepherd Shelter, donating prepared food platters to the First in Families fall fundraising auction, working Riverfest and Azaleafest parking lot to raise money for CFCC scholarships, on campus sales of popcorn and cookies, catering in-house events for CFCC, working concessions at Legion Stadium and Greenfield Lake ampitheatre, providing servers for the NHRMC Foundation fundraising event at the ILM airport, raising money for Haiti relief efforts, and more. Students plan and execute events, developing leadership and community conscience. Our Place accepts donations to the Pineapple Guild in lieu of gratuities. Your support is greatly appreciated!
What kind of jobs do students get when they graduate?
The Tourism industry is very strong in North Carolina; particularly here at the Cape Fear Coast. It is also a community where people come to retire, be educated and for medical treatment. Graduates find that there are more jobs than prospective employees available to fill them. Culinary Technology graduates have gone on to become chefs at area restaurants, private clubs, and institutional contractors such as Aramark which provides food service for UNCW and Cape Fear Memorial Hospital. Graduates of the Hotel-Restaurant Management include restaurant owners and operators, of entrepreneurships and franchises as well as Food and Beverage directors, Rooms and General Managers of Hotels. Some students have left the area, with the furthest known cooking for over one thousand international employees of a research station in Antarctica. Our graduates have a 100% employment rate. We anticipate that the Convention Center will provide more entry and management level opportunities for our graduates.