UI students dish up high-scale 'restaurants' at the Spice Box

May 8—URBANA — The finest dining experience in town is in an unexpected location: the University of Illinois' Bevier Hall.

Visit on a Friday evening in the spring, go upstairs and hang a right to the Spice Box and you'll be transported — depending on the week — to a magical forest, an art museum or a New York deli.

"Every time we open our doors, it's incredibly successful and just so much fun to share that experience with the students and watch them see their plans kind of come to life," said Professor Jorden Brotherton.

That's right: Everything at the Spice Box, from menu items to wall decor, is entirely designed by college students.

Brotherton teaches FSHN 443: Management of Fine Dining, a course required for seniors in Hospitality Management in the spring semester.

Students rotate through different jobs at the Spice Box, from host to server to different cooking roles.

They spend each full week transforming a bare-bones restaurant area to match a new theme while practicing and prepping a new menu's worth of recipes.

The big project that determines each of their grades is taking a turn as restaurateur.

"What that involves is designing a restaurant concept completely from scratch," Brotherton said.

Most importantly, that design has to work; real paying customers dine at each one-day "restaurant" and expect options for four-course or two-course meals.

In the past, each student only had six weeks to put their concept together, factoring in not only a great idea but cost feasibility — they even have to account for hypothetical labor and rent costs.

As of the 2023-24 school year, they're instead required to take a course in the preceding fall semester, which guides them through the design process and provides more chances for feedback and refinement.

Brotherton said this addition has really elevated the standard for each concept and allowed some of the more unusual restaurants to become reality.

When senior Katie Dunscomb pitched her plan for "upscale childhood classics," Brotherton wasn't convinced, but she stood her ground and it ended up being a huge success in February.

"I kind of saw college as moving on from childhood, so I wanted to celebrate the finality of that with having a lot of meals that I ate as a kid," Dunscomb said.

She was also inspired by visiting the middle school where her mom works and hanging out with the kids there.

Dunscomb remembers finding it challenging to plate chicken tenders in an upscale way, as well as struggling to come up with a salad idea.

Even after a semester to prepare, she only nailed down her salad recipe with two weeks to spare ... and everyone loved it.

"It was the greatest dish of my entire meal, like that's all I heard about from guests," she said. "It was a black currant jam dressing on a bed of spring mix with goat cheese crumbles. I made peanut butter brittle croutons, and then it had grapes cut up on it."

Dunscomb had made a PB&J salad.

Elle Rienks took an almost opposite approach to their restaurant concept, looking to works of fine art for inspiration.

They're a senior now, but actually had their Spice Box night in spring 2023; each year, Brotherton asks one student to take FSHN 443 as a junior in order to serve as a "learning assistant" for the same course during their senior year.

"I had a really good time with it," Rienks said. "I tried making it look like a museum, almost."

The curved shape of pork chops alluded to gothic architecture and pasta piled in a seashell was a clear reference to "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli.

Rienks didn't end up having to get into a lot of research, though "Pinterest was my best friend."

"I just sat for a very long time and thought very hard," they said.

Both Dunscomb and Rienks are looking forward to graduation and said that the Spice Box experience has made them feel more prepared for the hospitality or food careers they're hoping for.

However, beyond the hard work and the pressure of restaurant operations, both spoke most highly of the bond they formed with their classmates through long hours and dedication to making each other's concepts run perfectly.

After the restaurant closes, after the dishes have been cleaned and decorations packed away, all of the students gather to eat all of the leftovers.

"The person whose meal it is, they get to speak on behalf of them being the 'owner' for the night, and typically there's a lot of tears," Rienks said. "It always feels good at the end of the night, just to know that we truly do love what we do."

Once Dunscomb's night was over, she has thrown herself into working on everyone else's meals.

"You go to bed at like two in the morning because you're just wired afterward.... And I woke up Saturday morning feeling almost empty. Like, 'I've done my big thing, what am I going to do now?' It's been a lot of fun to put all my energy into my classmates' meals," Dunscomb said. "This major draws people that are a certain type of crazy, but it's my type of people."

Reservations for Spice Box meals can be made online, but the 2024 semester sold out almost immediately.

Brotherton said this is a first for him.

Without much in the way of an advertising budget, it has historically been up to students to convince people to come to their meals.

This year, however word got out about these one-time-only exclusive dining experiences, that hasn't been a concern at all.

"We're all of a sudden like the popular kid in town, which is awesome and we're super flattered," Brotherton said. "It was a little scary at first because I was worried that we were going to have a lot of people cancel last minute or just not show up. That has not been the case."

His recommendation for getting in: Watch the OpenTable reservation page within the two days leading up to a meal, because any cancellations tend to happen then.

Next year, Brotherton is considering staggering meal announcements so people can't reserve quite so far in advance, but for now it's a pretty good problem to have.