Two students opened an oven, and the smell of freshly cooked ham quickly wafted into the room.

Silver place settings gleamed in the background as 24 students bustled about MacKay Hall’s kitchen to finish preparations for an afternoon meal in the building’s Joan Bice Underwood Tearoom.

After some organized teamwork, everyone in the kitchen was ready for the front room staff to open the doors.

The students’ efforts are part of work necessary for their lab class, Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management 380L: Quantity Food Production and Service Management Experience. The lab is more commonly known as the class that operates the student-run tearoom in the basement of MacKay.

The tearoom class has been around since the late 1800s. The Tearoom was built in 1925. It has been remodeled four times, with the last in the spring of 2002, after ISU alumni Roger and Connie Underwood made a $300,000 donation in memory of Roger’s mother, Joan Bice, who was a tearoom student at ISU.

The tearoom provides a learning environment for students who eventually go on to manage a variety of food service operations, said Mike Oliver, lecturer in hotel, restaurant and institution management.

The tearoom houses about 80 guests during lunch time. Most of Tuesday’s guests were faculty and staff, including Michael Whiteford, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, who took advantage of the $5.50 gourmet meal.

The menu for the day included ham loaf with a grilled decorative pineapple, potatoes au Gratin, red cabbage and cauliflower salad, Swedish rye rolls and peach kuchen.

Associate professors of music David Stuart and Donald Simonson have been eating at the tearoom every Tuesday for the past 25 years with few exceptions.

“It’s our one hour of sanity,” Stuart said.

Oliver said students seem to take advantage of other options because they haven’t heard of the tearoom.

The students in the two sections of the lab class work the four days that the tearoom is open, Tuesday to Friday.

The first three weeks of the course are set up as training. Learning how to use the tools in the kitchen and learning the customs of the wait staff are all included in these first weeks. After training, the students are on their own to create and serve meals to their guests.

Students adhere to a dress code that consists of a white shirt and black pants for wait staff. Those working in the kitchen add a white chef coat and hat.

The students assume certain responsibilities and duties during class, such as being the kitchen manager. This person is in charge of everything from figuring out the menu for the day to pricing the sugar used in the 100 meals. That task on Tuesday was given to Amanda Raymond, senior in dietetics. Each position in the tearoom rotates positions during the semester to allow each student experience in all aspects of restaurant management.

“I love to cook, and I love being in the kitchen,” Raymond said. “It exposes dietetic students to more detail-oriented work than what they’re usually exposed to.”

A correction to this article was printed on Feb. 6, 2004:

Due to a reporting error, the Feb. 4 article “MacKay tearoom becomes gourmet, hands-on lab” stated the Joan Bice Underwood Tearoom was named in memory of ISU alumna Joan Bice Underwood. The restaurant is dedicated to Underwood, who lives in Atlantic. The Daily regrets this error.