The school of Culinary Art and Hospitality Management & Tourism (HMT) at Northwestern State University launched a new fine dining experience called Columns Café last semester. Columns café kicked off with the first dinner service at the end of Fall 2018. It is completely student-run as it was designed to provide experiential learning to the HMT student.

“Through this program, they are going to have valuable skills and have valuable experience that prepares them for their carrier after they graduate,” Valerie Salter, assistant professor at the school of HMT, said about her students.

Starting this semester, lunch and dinner will be added to the Column Café.

“We are offering four lunch services this semester,” Salter said. “People can come and sit down at 11 o’clock or 11:30 for those services. Dinner will begin at 6 o’clock.”

These dinner services will be centered around different themes: “Some of the themes we will include are Italian, Mardi Gras, Spanish and Greek,” Salter said.

John Carrier, the new certified executive chef is full of momentum and hope for the New Café.

“This will be a really good experience for the students,” Carrier said. “Especially because they don’t have access to fine dining around here, so they will get a chance to experience how [it] works before they graduate.”

Columns Café “teaches the students about teamwork and professional services and food production. All this is transferable to any field they chose in the hospitality industry,” Salter said.

“With our degree employees always require experience,” said junior HMT major Donna Law. “So, I have asked myself how I’m I going to have experience being a waiter. With Columns Café, it has really opened up the opportunity to get experience doing what we learn in class.”

Tickets to the café can be purchased at https://hmt.nsula.edu.