Search Results (4)

As there is a rapid increase in the consumption of food outside the home, it is essential that future foodservice managers are well prepared for their critical role in menu creation and nutrition care planning in a variety of foodservice establishments. Student-operated restaurants (SORs) are one method of experiential learning used to educate future foodservice managers. This study aimed to explore the students’ perceptions of their SOR experience and the extent to which nutrition concepts were incorporated in their program. This is a research area that has not been explored previously. For this study, a total of eighteen students from four universities were recruited via email to participate in interviews. Results from the qualitative thematic analysis of interview data revealed the following three overarching themes related to students’ SOR experience: (1) Interpersonal Relationships and Mentoring, (2) Assessment of Immediate Experience, and (3) Moving Forward, Added Value, and Growth. Regarding nutrition, while some students felt that nutrition principles were effectively addressed during their SOR experience, other students acknowledged a lack of nutritional emphasis in their SOR and expressed a desire for a greater application of the nutritional principles learned in other classes. The SOR experience described by students was rich as they developed a variety of relationships and skills. Full article

The objective of this case study is to enable students to analyze the financial impact of an unexpected catastrophic event on a retail business and how the strategic operational decisions made in response to regulatory restrictions and changes in tax policy impact the business’s risk tolerance and breakeven analysis. To provide students with a context for comparison, this case study provides students with the opportunity to analyze the financial statements of a retail business prior to the occurrence of an unexpected catastrophic event, how the catastrophic event impacted revenue and profitability, and how the risk reduction strategies the business employed contained the adverse impact of the factors brought on by that catastrophic event on breakeven. This case study addresses a core gap in the body of knowledge by analyzing a business in three distinct stages of the business life cycle: (1) in the start-up phase; (2) in pre-crisis operations mode; and (3) in crisis mode confronted with an unexpected catastrophic event amidst governmental shutdowns, state and federal regulatory restrictions, and emergency changes to the tax policy. Examining a fictitious restaurant (a composite of the sales statistics of three actual restaurants located in Long Island, New York from 2019 to 2021) in operation for one year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, students are given the opportunity to think critically about how strategic operational decisions made to generate sales, to minimize risk, to comply with mandated state government policy, and to take advantage of federal tax relief policy, collectively changed the financial projections and impacted the breakeven analysis of that business. Students are able to evaluate business start-up costs, first year (pre-pandemic) sales and costs, and second year (during pandemic) sales and costs of a retail business. Students then evaluate how the United States’ federal PPP relief loan program, along with other pandemic relief programs for businesses and individuals, impacted profitability and business strategy. Students also assess risk, risk tolerance, and how the strategies employed to minimize risk impact a business. The motivation for this case study is to provide students with an illustrative example of an entity at various stages of the business life cycle, to explore the surrounding context of the impact of external environmental events, and to identify the effects of strategic operational responses to the various regulatory changes that were brought on by a catastrophic event. This case study is designed for use in courses that study revenue projection, tax, internal controls, breakeven analysis, and risk management. Teaching Note: While this case study uses a restaurant as a model, prior understanding of the restaurant industry is not necessary. Any student or instructor can use their practical knowledge and experience as a consumer to adequately analyze the issues presented. Full article

In recent years, with the flourishing of the catering economy and the trends in computer technology, restaurant operators have increasingly relied on employees with computational and information skills. Breaking through the traditional teaching method of mere lecturing, the study conducts a teaching demonstration by integrating the computational thinking concept and a Microsoft Excel computational system on the school’s E-learning platform into the teaching of a Culinary and Restaurant Management course. A non-equivalent control group pretest–posttest study with a quasi-experimental design is adopted for the assignment of experimental participants and the design of the course. The results show that a curriculum design with computational thinking significantly improves the effectiveness of students’ learning in digital technology and is especially helpful for the cultivation of the key capabilities of menu design and cost planning among restaurant management skills. The study makes the following contributions: during the Culinary and Restaurant Management course, the use of the E-learning platform and computing programs such as Microsoft Excel is associated with greater learning effectiveness than traditional teaching methods. The research results can serve as a reference for promoting an E-catering business model and a sustainable educational model in the future. Full article

When the new student center at Stockholm University in Sweden was completed in the fall of 2013 it was thoroughly instrumented. The 6300 m² four-story building with offices, a restaurant, study lounges, and meeting rooms was designed to be energy efficient with a planned total energy use of 25 kWh/m²/year. Space heating and hot water are provided by a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system consisting of five 40 kW off-the-shelf water-to-water heat pumps connected to 20 boreholes in hard rock, drilled to a depth of 200 m. Space cooling is provided by direct cooling from the boreholes. This paper uses measured performance data from Studenthuset to calculate the actual thermal performance of the GSHP system during one of its early years of operation. Monthly system coefficients-of-performance and coefficients-of-performance for both heating and cooling operation are presented. In the first months of operation, several problems were corrected, leading to improved performance. This paper provides long-term measured system performance data from a recently installed GSHP system, shows how the various system components affect the performance, presents an uncertainty analysis, and describes how some unanticipated consequences of the design may be ameliorated. Seasonal performance factors (SPF) are evaluated based on the SEPEMO (“SEasonal PErformance factor and MOnitoring for heat pump systems”) boundary schema. For heating (“H”), SPFs of 3.7 ± 0.2 and 2.7 ± 0.13 were obtained for boundaries H2 and H3, respectively. For cooling (“C”), a C2 SPF of 27 ± 5 was obtained. Results are compared to measured performance data from 55 GSHP systems serving commercial buildings that are reported in the literature. Full article