A well-prepared, well-balanced and healthy lunch is now available at the Tearoom in 23 MacKay Hall.

The Tearoom offers a four to five-dish meal, including dessert and drink, at a cost of $3.70. The meals are prepared by some of the top students in the hotel and restaurant management and dietetics programs.

The Tearoom serves as a lab where students rotate responsibilities for managing and coordinating the restaurant.

“[The students] do meal planning, order the food, give instructions to the various other students and supervise during the lab,” said Janice Dana, assistant professor in hotel and restaurant management and lab instructor for the Tearoom.

The students first hold an assistant management position and then a head management position so that each student will work many positions and learn the responsibilities for each, Dana said.

Dana said the head manager for the week also works with the instructor to evaluate the performance of the other students.

“It gives you a real good picture of how a restaurant works,” said Mike McNally, a junior in hotel and restaurant management who took the class in the spring semester. “It shows you how all the jobs together make one big job.”

Robert Knight, a senior in hotel and restaurant management, is the first head manager for the Tearoom this summer. “The Tearoom really creates an ideal restaurant environment. It helps people eliminate a lot of sloppy habits they come in with,” he said.

Roberts said the class is unique and one of the most difficult classes on campus because of the amount of information the students need to learn and because the class has to work as a team.

“We’ve had to learn how to operate every piece of equipment in the kitchen in about a week and a half,” Knight said. “We’ve got to learn to adapt to complicated situations very quickly.

“This is one of the closest-knit classes I’ve dealt with … the whole class of 25 people have to work together or everybody will fail,” he said.

The Tearoom’s menu for today is turkey tetrazini, orange and kiwi salad, crescent rolls and chocolate mousse with toasted walnuts for dessert. Drink choices are coffee, tea, iced tea and milk.

The Tearoom opens at noon and closes at 1 p.m. Patrons should arrive at noon in order to ensure service. Reservations are strongly recommended and can be made by calling 294-3330 between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.