Golden Egg for Contract Foodservices Hatches at CIA this Summer
15 January 2015
The Culinary Institute of America and Restaurant Associates announce a new partnership designed to accelerate innovation in contract-foodservice operations of the future.
The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and Restaurant Associates (RA) recently formed a strategic partnership geared toward fostering future creativity, innovation and “intrapreneurial” thinking in the contract-foodservice sector of the foodservice industry. In support of the CIA’s capital campaign, RA and Compass Group have also made a substantial commitment to provide financial assistance to students in pursuit of their professional degrees.
Along with increasing student scholarships, the nexus of the partnership will be the CIA’s new Student Commons, which is now under construction and scheduled to open in the summer of 2015. Located at the college’s flagship Hyde Park, N.Y., campus and designed under the direction of world-renowned Adam Tihany, the new facility will take the concept of student dining to a new level. The state-of-the-art facility will feature several cooking and dining venues, a high-volume production teaching kitchen, a fresh market complete with green walls growing herbs and vegetables, a teaching micro-brewery in partnership with Brooklyn Brewery, and a “black box restaurant” in which bachelor’s students studying intrapraneurshipwill develop and market-test new restaurant concepts.
Restaurant Associates brings a wide range of knowledge in foodservice operations to the new partnership. A subsidiary of Compass Group North America based in Charlotte, N.C., RA operates more than 150 locations, providing foodservices to museums, performing-arts centers, aquariums, corporate dining and educational facilities, as well as off-premise event catering in New York City, Boston, Hartford, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.
The dining facility on the Hyde Park campus, named The Egg for its oval shape, will be operated by RA in partnership with the Education Division of the CIA. “Knowing that so many of our students pursue careers with major operators like Restaurant Associates, it made sense for us to create a new student dining facility that introduces them to the latest innovations in technology and menu development,” says Dr. Tim Ryan, CMC, president of the CIA.
“As an industry leader, RA’s cutting-edge knowledge of providing contract foodservices in large-volume environments will be a valued addition to our students’ CIA experience.” In turn, Ryan says, the initiative will enable CIA students to exercise their creativity and explore new concepts with CIA faculty, to the benefit of the industry.
According to Dick Cattani, CEO of Restaurant Associates, hundreds of culinary and management team members within the Compass family are CIA graduates, and a number of them will be involved with this project.
Ed Sirhal, president of RA, adds, “As one of America’s leading culinary colleges, the CIA’s values mirror all those held by Restaurant Associates when it comes to areas like health, wellness, quality and sustainability. We are thrilled to enter into this long-term partnership with the CIA and look forward to creating an entirely new standard of food and hospitality excellence.”
Photo:The focal point of the CIA’s new Student Commons, which is now under construction and scheduled to open this summer, is the dining facility named The Egg for its oval shape. The facility will be operated by Restaurant Associates in partnership with the Education Division of the college. Courtesy of Steve Patricia/Noelker and Hull.