As part of Hospitality Management 487, or Fine Dining Event Management, students have the chance to test out their skills on the public.

Three students in the class of 15 will each be hosting a dinner this fall, each in the Tea Room, which is in 23 MacKay Hall.

The idea is to create and host a meal for the public. The entire class is in preparation for these meals. Brianna Namuth, senior in culinary food science, described it as a mini capstone class.

The first meal will be on Oct. 25, the second on Nov. 1 and the final on Nov. 15. Each meal will be five courses for $30 per guest or $35 with wine and beer selections.

Although there are many steps in the process of hosting a meal like this, the first step was the biggest.

“We tried to think of a theme more than anything, really,” Lindsay Miller, senior in culinary food science, said.

Matt Ocheltree, senior in hospitality management, chose Ciao ISU, Taste of Italy as his group’s theme. Miller’s group chose Life Through Julia Child and Namuth’s group decided on College Classics Reinvented.

“It’s kind of taking a [fine] twist on dorm food, or what you would consider college comfort food,” Brianna said of her group’s meal choice. “This was kind of a way to make something brand new that people hadn’t tried before.”

The two other groups went a different route, however. Lindsay’s group chose Julia Child because it is something harder to find in Ames. Matt’s group went with Italy, but chose not to do pasta as their main dish.

Ingredients for the dishes come from several locations. The Tea Room serves meals throughout the semesters, and they get ingredients from Hy-Vee and Sysco, said Namuth. Some ingredients will be from these two companies, while local stores and farmers will complete the other ingredients.

Meat will come from the Iowa State Meats Laboratory and some herbs will be collected from an herb garden on campus. Cyclone Liquors will be the main provider of the alcohol served.

Namuth, Miller and Ocheltree will all be front of house managers for their evenings. They mostly deal with how everything is presented to guests. Some duties include reservations, decorating and managing servers.

Although there has been extensive planning to prepare these meals, there have been a few challenges. Finding common ground within groups has been one of the biggest, according to the students.

“I would agree with coming to a consensus [being a challenge],” Ocheltree said. “A lot of opinions change in how they see things, how they want, how things all taste.”

However, even with the challenges, the students said they are excited for the meals, although there are still some nerves.

“I’m a little nervous,” Namuth said. “I’m not worried about the day or messing up, but there’s a lot of details.”

More information can be found on Iowa State’s announcements page.