UGA Week 5

Sunday, June 26, 2016

UGA Week 5

This week officially starts the second half of our journey here at UGA; I can't believe how fast it is going by!

This week, for me, began by spending the day shadowing one of the Assistant Managers at The Village Summit, one of the 5 dining halls on campus. I spent the day learning about opening procedures, scheduling (which can be quite the task when you have so many people and many moving parts), assignment sheets, meal transitions (from breakfast to lunch, for example), and progressive discipline. Although it can be a not so fun topic, for either end of the party, I found learning about progressive discipline to be really educational, because as a manager, that is something that you will eventually have to deal with, and it is important to know the proper policies and procedures, as well as how to approach and council an employee.

One of the many unique stations at The Village Summit

On Tuesday, Maura and I had the chance to search through the Food Pro recipe archive to look for recipes that we may be able to use for our special event. As of currently, we are writing 3 original recipes, which include lobster rolls, Rhode Island clam chowder, and Cape Cod chopped salad, and using 4 already existing recipes in Food Pro, which we are tweeking a bit to fit our vision. These 4 recipes include summer squash lasagna, maple glazed pork chops, Boston baked beans, and Boston cream pie. (If you haven't picked up on the theme yet, its a New England themed menu!) The rest of the day consisted of a product tasting, where we had the chance to try some cold brew coffee and loose leaf teas (Yum!), as well as meet with Jorge, the Executive Chef, and Sam, the Head Chef at The Village Summit, to discuss the progress of our menu.

Wednesday arrived rather quickly, and sure enough, it was time for our mid-point evaluations, but first, Maura and I had the pleasure to meet with Chef Shelly at Bolton, where she gave us some very helping tips about recipe writing, and also taught us about service records and forecasting, which allows dining halls to refer back to previous weeks, months, and even years, to determine how much food they think they will need to serve on any given day. After our mid-point evaluations with Kris and Craig, Maura and I met with Stuart, the Food Pro genius here at UGA, to learn about production runs. Our meeting fell at a good time, because it just so happened to be the end of the fiscal year.

Thursday was our last real work day of the week, because Friday was allotted to project work, where Maura and I spent a good chunk of time writing up the first drafts of our recipes! On Thursday, however, we got the chance to shadow 3 of Bolton's managers, all of which have very different management styles. Our schedule was a little bit different than we have been used to though because today we got to help close the building at the end of the night. We learned about closing procedures and delegating tasks.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I tend to not have my phone on me at work, but here they come! This weekend was Athens famous AthFest! AthFest is a festival that is held in downtown Athens, that is held for 3 days and has dozens of shows, artists, vendors, and food trucks.