As many of you now know, Vita Nova is a restaurant with many moving parts. What is most surprising to many of our diners, is that the super-professional waiters and waitresses serving them at their table are the same students that you can catch at Grottos on a Friday Night. How does one maintain the professionalism and etiquette of a fine-dining restaurant while still being a college-aged student? For the students of Vita Nova, it has been engrained in them since their first day as a Hospitality in Business Student. The running joke for a HBM student is that they have more business professional attire than an average working professional. Every guest speaker, seminar, educational trip, and career fair demands a plethora of pressed suits and a professional demeanor. In fact, when admitted into the Hospitality program, each student receives a packet that goes over what dress is expected of them for every situation. In Vita Nova, everything a professional Hospitality in Business student knows is amped up and put to the test. This fine dining atmosphere demands pressed shirts, no slack on your tie, your hair slicked back and in a neutral color, pressed pants, and our dining room manager's favorite: long black socks. This attire may seem extreme, but it sets the stage for a upscale evening. Once the scene is set with the waitstaff's attire, proper etiquette, language, and attitude is addressed. Words like "yeah", "okay", "sure", and the phrase "you guys" are thought of as bad words in front of our guests. Words like "certainly", "my pleasure", and "ladies and gentlemen" are the only proper alternatives to these bad words. If you ever want to test out how hard of an adjustment this is for our students, try going a day without saying any of the bad words mentioned. It takes a couple of weeks to really train the students to speak in the proper vernacular, but once they have caught on, these words only amplify the guests upscale experience. Once proper dress and verbiage are tackled, the student must also learn proper table setting and table etiquette. This means that each table setting must look identical and pristine. It also means that each of the waitstaff must remember the 25 steps of service and what side of the guest they must stand to take an order, serve and clear plates, serve and clear beverages, place menus, and more. All of these practical approaches to waiting on a table finishes the final touches on making it an upscale experience to dine at Vita Nova. So now that you know a little bit more about the transformation from regular college student to upscale Vita Nova waitstaff, we hope that you come in and observe the little touches that the students execute. We also hope that this gives you a newfound appreciation for these college students who are running through a mental list of rules and etiquette from the moment the guests arrive to the moment they leave. Vita Nova is more than proud of the work that the students put in, and how each student leaves this semester with more professionalism than one can expect to learn in a lifetime.
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The StudentsThe students of the Hospitality Business Management program at the University of Delaware share their experiences at Vita Nova Archives
November 2020
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