Some might say that the Tartan Terrace is the oldest pop-up restaurant in Dayton. During Spring, Summer, and Fall semesters, this student-run restaurant plates up multiple course lunches and dinners, offers up bountiful buffets and sells all sorts of gourmet bread, cakes, and pastries at its Bakery Café. It’s exclusive – patrons of this establishment must sometimes register for its lunches and dinners a semester ahead – but also extremely affordable. The service is attentive, cheerful, and down-to-earth. The ambiance is stellar.
At the end of each semester, students in the Hospitality Management and Tourism program, with the guidance and encouragement of the department, serve the public through the Tartan Terrace Restaurant on the fourth floor of Building 13. This student business functions as an educational working environment and provides students with real-world working experience.
“The Tartan Terrace is important for HMT students because it gives them a real-world experience in the food and beverage industry,” said department chair Derek Allen. “It allows them to improve their skills at a training site based on customer feedback before they actually go into the commercial working environment.”
Students learn to handle every step of foodservice, from stove to table, that restaurant workers and operators encounter as part of feeding the paying public. The serving team is staffed by students of the Menu Planning and Table Service Practicum class. Culinary Arts and Baking/Pastry Arts students in the “back-of-house” team create everything the servers carry, smiling, to the tables in the “front-of-house.”
Tartan Terrace fosters teamwork and communication skills between students with a supportive learning and working environment. It helps them to organize their minds to respond to the demands of restaurant work. It helps them anticipate, observe, and meet the needs of their guests.
HMT student Nicholas Cheng just finished up his last service of the semester at the Terrace. He has also worked at Wheat Penny in Dayton and believes working experience is important to culinary students.
“Experience is so important in the kitchen and front of the house. You need the confidence to follow through even if you have the knowledge you need,” said Cheng. “With more experience, you get faster and better.”
“Experience rounds out their education,” explained Chef Instructor Rae Rosbough. “In some restaurants, there can be a big divide between front-of-house and back-of-house. Getting to experience both is super helpful.”
Maintaining an organized, cooperative, holistic mindset can be difficult in the restaurant industry. Sinclair provides the tools workers need to excel as individuals and with their teams. It accommodates and builds up students with all different levels of experience. By instilling knowledge and encouraging practice, HMT fosters a positive hospitality mentality and team-oriented, community-minded ethics in its students.
“I’m a big believer in the hospitality smile,” said Allen. Call his voicemail and his message will remind you that “life’s too great not to smile.”
“It seems that if someone’s falling behind, everyone is ready to help. I love that here,” said Rosbough. “In some businesses, that’s not necessarily how it works. Our classes are based in the community.”
Since the fall of 1993, HMT students have been running Tartan Terrace. Full of light and decorated with artwork from Sinclair’s permanent collection, visitors to Tartan Terrace are immersed in an inspiring ambiance in a building with an interesting history. The Terrace’s top floor view of downtown’s tall towers and Sacred Heart Church is beautiful. There’s been a kitchen on the top floor since the building was built by United Brethren Publishing in 1915, shortly after Dayton’s Great Flood.
People can call (937) 512-2014 to reserve their table at the award-winning Tartan Terrace Restaurant or walk straight into its Bakery Café during its open hours. Learn more about the restaurant and check out their menus and schedule on their website.
Carlos Jillson
Reporter