A Different Culinary Experience

If you’ve taken a walk around Auburn recently, you’ve noticed the construction going on next to the Auburn University Hotel and Dixon Conference Center.

The Tony & Libba Rane Culinary Science Center will be completed in 2022. But what will be going in this space? A hotel and spa, a rooftop terrace, restaurant, a coffee roastery and cafe, a microbrewery, a food vendor market and more. The ultimate culinary experience.

A Learning Center:

“We’re very honored to be entrusted, as we have been, by the Rane family to carry Tony and Libba’s name forward through what is titled the culinary science center but it will be the home of Auburn’s Hospitality Management Program and culinary is but one of three of those programs,” said Martin O’Neill, professor and NDHM Department head.

Auburn currently offers an accredited degree in hospitality management with the option for tracks in culinary

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science, hotel and restaurant management and event management.

“[Auburn’s program] is one of only 46, nationally and internationally to have that at the four-year level,” O’Neill said. “The program, really, is a mix of what we would call operations and functional subject matter.”

Additionally, the school offers graduate programs with both thesis and non-thesis master's degrees, both online and on-campus.

Students will have opportunities in the new center that are unavailable in their current classrooms — students will be involved in every aspect of the center.

“It’s a genuine, real-world experience for the students,” said Mark Traynor, associate professor and program coordi-

nator for culinary science.

Firstly, there is the training restaurant.

The training restaurant is open to the public — like any restaurant — with the caveat that it is also a learning opportunity for students.

“Playing in the classroom is one thing, actually engaging with the public, the paying public, I mean, it's a whole other level of operation and whole other level of challenge that the student is confronted with and by,” O’Neill said.

A different chief in residence will hopefully be available each year, O’Neill said, that will work with the students.

By sophomore year, students will have responsibilities within the restaurant. Early on, those will be waiting and busing tables, handling the public, working the bar and things like that.

Further in the program, students will be given more responsibility as managers in the restaurant with planning, marketing, promoting and executing, O’Neill said.

Students will also be working in the restaurant from the kitchen perspective, too.

“So you’ve got people taking ownership of the menu from a production perspective,” Traynor said. “Executive Chef, Sous Chef, Commis Chef, all those sorts of things.”

Students also have the opportunity to see their food from conception to execution, all the way down toagriculture, with the help of a rooftop garden.

“They will grow what they will eat,” O’Neill said. “And that focus is sustainable agriculture. So we’re working with the College of Agriculture on a lot of that.”

The center also includes a three-story hotel, which is an additional opportunity for students to learn.

The hotel will have students working in all aspects, just

like they will in the training restaurant, O’Neill said.

“They’re really getting the whole hospitality industry in one building,” Traynor said. “Which is really unique for a culinary student.”

Chef Ana Plana, lecturer in the Culinary Science program, said that the goal is to help students push themselves to be the best they can be.

“We’re unique because we hope when these students leave our program, they’re leaders,” she said. “And that’s really what we want. So, we want to nurture obviously, the fundamentals and things like that, but we really want them to leave the program really strong.”

Community Opportunities:

If you are a community member coming in to enjoy dinner — there will be so much to explore in the center.

Food Labs will host workshops, classes, boot camps, etc. There will be the microbrewery too. And more opportuni-

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ties for eating in the food hall.

“These are artisanal food vendors that are competing for space and they’ll be producing, I mean it could be anything, from poke bars, to crepe bars, to sandwich bars, to ice cream bars, to pizza bars,” O’Neill said. “I think there’s a total of about eight [or] nine in there.”

Food Halls are growing more popular — don’t think food court. Think the Ponce City Market in Atlanta.

“A food hall is more artisanal, it’s fast-casual, better quality, higher quality food,” Traynor said. “It’s a higher price point, but not outrageous because it’s not a full-service restaurant. But that’s the trendiest thing at the moment.”

One of the vendors will be left open for incubation, Traynor said, whether that be in the community or for a student.

“There’s a lot of people who are really, really interested in food in this state and in this region and we want to help them be entrepreneurs, food entrepreneurs or beverage entrepreneurs,” he said.

The next floor of the center will have a wine education center, a distilled spirits center and food demonstration kitchen.

Even though the center won’t open likely until fall 2022 — there is work happening now to prepare for community development and engagement.

“We just want the community to get to meet us, to get to know us and feel them out, what their interests are, what kind of classes they’re interested in,” Plana said. “So it’s not just the shiny new building and labs that we’re going to have. We really want to build the relationship with the community. So we’re trying to do that now before we get in there.”

Some of those classes may be food-related, and others may be beverage related, such as a wine 101 class, O’Neill said.

“We’ve always been very clear that we have an opendoor, open-mind policy when it comes to engagement with the public, because that’s what tourism is,” O’Neill said.

Above all of this, the classrooms and the hotel is an event center, spa and rooftop pool.

“The uniqueness of what we’re doing — so much under one roof,” O’Neill said. “Most facilities have a focus. It’s either lodging or it’s food and beverage. Or it is culinary; or it’s maybe culinary and lodging. But to have all of that with wine, with beer, with a food hall, with a rooftop, with a spa.”

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