By Kelli Long

The iron burned a hole in the white linen tablecloth, then quit working completely. And this was at 9:30 a.m., guaranteed to be the first of many near-disasters the students, the professor and the chef would have to avert in order to get lunch served at noon sharp.

This may seem like a scene from a restaurant downtown, but it’s far from that. This is just a typical Thursday morning at The Lemon Tree, a restaurant located on the second floor of Erikson Hall in the center of UK’s campus. It is a full-service restaurant where UK dietetics and hospitality, management and tourism students do everything from creating the menus, preparing the food and acting as the servers who bring the finished product out to the table.

Just like running any other restaurant, operating The Lemon Tree is far from predictable. Thursday was no different.There already was the iron incident, which was quickly solved by tossing the now discolored and partially see-through tablecloth and replacing it with a crisp, unironed white linen one, as the iron seemed to have used its last bit of steam as it took the tablecloth down with it. And then, there was the Jell-O.

“Do we need a spoon or a fork with the Jell-O?” a student who was a server for the day asked Dr. Sandra Bastin, the professor in charge of the method behind all this madness.

“Well, how is it being served?” she asked. “Is it cut into a square? Or are you cutting it into shapes with a cookie cutter? Be creative. Maybe you want to cut it into cubes and serve it in a parfait dish. We might need whipped topping for that,” Bastin said as the student walked off to use her creativity and see which solution would work best.

“Last week we ran out of towels. This week, the iron won’t work,” said Bastin, associate extension professor of food and nutrition, as she sits down to take a break from running between the restaurant’s two kitchens. “You have to find ways to make it all work.”

And in a sense, that is one of the main purposes of the class that requires dietetics and hospitality, management and tourism students to work in The Lemon Tree. Of course, learning how to cook is an important part of the class, Bastin said, but gaining leadership and management skills are just as important.

The capstone course gives the students the opportunity to learn about every aspect of the food service industry. They learn how to purchase food, then prepare and serve it. At the same time, they are learning how to properly monitor sanitation, take reservations, wash the dishes and clean the kitchen afterward.

Managing personnel and technology are also skills that Bastin tries to emphasize as part of the course. The students learn to work with people from different backgrounds and different personalities, giving them the skills that they need to work in not only the restaurant industry, but also any job that they may encounter in their futures.

The Lemon Tree has been a part of UK’s campus since the early 1960s when Joe Paulk came to the university to help grow the dietetics program. The program grew, and in the 1990s, it expanded to include hospitality students in addition to dietetics students. It has now evolved into a restaurant that serves a three-course meal every Tuesday and Thursday at noon.

A key part of the restaurant’s menu is the incorporation of Kentucky Proud products, an important factor for Bob Perry, head chef at The Lemon Tree. On this particular Thursday, the Kentucky connections are the bacon used in the barbecue sauce for the pulled barbecue chicken sandwiches, and the strawberries in the Jell-O dessert, grown on UK’s South Farm.

Perry has been at The Lemon Tree for two years, but has almost 30 years of experience as a chef. He also serves as project manager for the sustainable agriculture and food systems working group for the College of Agriculture. This has intensified his beliefs that the use of Kentucky products is important.

“It’s good for the environment, good for the economy and local farmers, it helps to build community, and the food tastes really good,” Chef Bob, as he is called in The Lemon Tree, said.

The 40 to 50 professors, faculty and students who eat at The Lemon Tree each Tuesday and Thursday probably never know the madness that goes on before they are seated at their perfectly clothed tables, waiting for restaurant-style  meal on campus.

Not unlike a real restaurant, The Lemon Tree faces its share of challenges and unexpected surprises every day. But through these little incidents, the students learn how to work through them and in the end, whip up a quality product.