Teachers and courses involved:

• David Criswell, Culinary Arts, Poinciana High School
• Matt DeRight, Marketing, Poinciana High School
• Belinda Grieve, Business Systems & Technology, Poinciana High School 

Description of the Project

• The Eagle Wings Café gives teachers a chance to cool down and relax during their lunch while enjoying high quality, gourmet food, in a fully operational and professional restaurant setting. Over the past school year, the Eagle Wings Café has grown tremendously in popularity and demand from not only Poinciana High School faculty and staff, but also staff from surrounding schools, businesses, and school board members. We always receive positive feedback and compliments on our professionalism and high quality.
  
  Today, the Café has grown tremendously from just the culinary arts program to involving three different curriculums. Those are the culinary arts department of Chef David Criswell, marketing with Mr. DeRight, and Business Systems & Technology I with Mrs. Grieve. These programs have come together to manage, promote, and help keep track of finances, while giving students an early opportunity to have a hands-on view of what really goes on in the restaurant industry.
  
  
  There is a lot of work and dedication that students must demonstrate in order for this project to work. Before anything else is done, students are responsible for promoting the café through flyers, word of mouth, email, and other marketing strategies. Once that has begun, we start receiving orders through teachers’ mailboxes and email; these need to be organized into a database and kept track of by a student coordinator. In the mean time, several Culinary Arts III students start selecting volunteer staff under the supervision of Chef David Criswell. This staff includes many positions found in restaurants every day like, supervisors, host/hostesses, waiters, cleaning crew, Chefs, pastry chefs, and many more.
  
  On the day of the event, the culinary staff is briefed on how everything will work, if there are any changes, and any last minute things that might affect operating procedures. Then like in any restaurant, food is prepared, tables are set, dishes are cleaned and all changes necessary to ensure our customers remain happy in a fast paced environment. The business students retrieve the “bank” from the school’s bookkeeper, collect and track the receipts, balance the till and prepare and deposit the receipts. Throughout the day, and until everyone who has placed an order leaves satisfied, work doesn’t end, just like it would be in a full scale restaurant.
  

  
  

Student Involvement, Reaction, Benefits

• Many students who are involved in the successful Eagle Wings Café have since decided to take what they have learned in this project, and pursue this as their future careers. Some go on to the culinary field in restaurant management or other programs and others to business, and even to marketing. 

Plans for Future Continuation/Modification

• As this has been our first year of operation, we are constantly changing the way we do business. It is exciting to see the students work together, and solve problems in a real world simulation. We would like to grow the Café by incorporating business partners and begin establishing more permanent operating procedures so that as the students change the new ones can be easily trained to continue with the café. Some of the procedures we would like to add are time cards, payroll, and other accounting features (P & L statements, Balance Sheets, etc.), developing our logo and company forms utilizing the digital design classes. We also hope to unveil our Eagle Wings Deli which will serve deli style sandwiches three times a week. Currently, our café serves meals every other Friday.