RAM Café Feeds Harriton for its Sixteenth Year

Harriton’s own pop-up restaurant appeared during A and C lunch Wednesday, June 4, in its sixteenth year of operation. Staffed by Mrs. Barnett’s Foreign Foods classes, the café was a delicious experience for anyone who had the luck and speed to get a reservation.

Lunch was served in three courses. The appetizer was green salad with roasted red pepper hummus, roasted carrots, and toasted pecans. Mr. Eveslage said that his favorite dish was this healthy salad, especially the delicious, spicy hummus. For the main course, there was pasta served with broccoli and spinach and topped with juicy aligio sauce that was made of garlic, oil, leeks, and butter. Finally, as many jealous passersby might have observed, dessert was delectable chocolate chip cookie cups filled with ice cream and salted hot fudge.

In and out of the kitchen, each student had a role. First, there were the chefs, dressed in white toques and apron coats. The Foreign Foods classes had prepared much of the food weeks in advance, including the aligio sauce, cookie cups, and hummus. The chefs were responsible for cooking the pasta and broccoli on the day of the café. The dishwashers worked in between the tri-lunch shifts to wash the dishes. Waiters escorted guests to their seats, served them, and transferred dishes to and from the kitchen. In this state of controlled chaos, Mrs. Barnett was always busy directing the many operations and people within her room.

Some staff members were only in the kitchen part-time. Floor runners alerted the kitchen of recently arrived guests and special dietary requests such as nut allergies. The manager and assistant managers had to sign in all of the guests on the guest list, collect money, and persuade people to fill out feedback forms. The café also had security personnel who protected the food from hungry, uninvited students. Lastly, the plate and table decorators helped the cafe look as nice and professional as it did. Plate decorators tossed salad, scooped ice cream, and generally arranged and prepared the food on the plate, while the table decorators had to set and reset the place settings, each with two forks, a spoon, a bowl and plate, and a specially folded napkin.

For the diners, from students and parents to teachers and principals, the entire experience was a welcome break from their busy lives. Demand was high; 72 people signed up for the 64 spots. They ate scrumptious cuisine and talked at white-clothed tables as a lively string quartet (Dan Liu, Tristan Maidment, Vera Lee, and Sang-o Park) provided music. From the wonderful food to the relaxed ambience, many seemed to treasure it as something worth much more than the seven dollars they paid for a reservation. Dr. Fina, school psychologist, enthused, “I never take time to eat [lunch outside my office], so that I’m able to sit down in a situation where everyone is calm and you get served and people are thinking of your needs – I think that’s worth a lot more than seven dollars.”

When she was asked about her opinion on the café experience, Ms. Koukos, a special education teacher, also responded with praise. “I didn’t really know what to expect. It’s my first RAM Café. The level of professionalism is amazing!” It should be – Mrs. Barnett has had a long time to perfect the experience. This RAM Café is the sixteenth that she has directed in her twenty-five years at Harriton. Mrs. Barnett will retire next year after the first semester, and the incoming Foods teacher will have to decide whether to continue running this delicious event.

It took a lot of hard work and planning to arrive at the day, and, like any long-running project, the café had to work through unexpected problems. Mrs. Barnett explained, “On three occasions, the students had experienced glitches that could occur in any normal restaurant. One year, there was no hot water and the students had to boil all the hot water to do dishes. The first year in the new building, the water lines were cut. There was no running water and the students had to use bottled water to do everything. We managed to run the RAM Cafe without an accessible water source.”

Just as students in the past had to make it work, this year’s café was no exception. “This year, a week prior to the café, the freezer broke down. We lost the ice cream, but we were able to salvage most of the food. We’ve had glitches within the cafe, but students have always risen above expectations to make it work,” Mrs. Barnett said.

Speaking about her emotions over this being her last RAM Café on the day after, she expressed pride in her students’ hard work. “It’s wonderful and sad at the same time. I must admit; I did get teary yesterday, because the students performed to perfection and went above and beyond what they needed to do. They stayed longer; they worked harder and asked if there was anything extra they could do. They were wonderful, and they exemplified what Harriton is all about.”