sweet alyssum cake & bake shop

One of the reasons I was excited to choose the Valencia program instead of a strictly culinary school was classes like the one I am taking on Wednesdays, Food and Beverage Management.  While the textbook and the subject matter so far are a little dry (and mostly stuff I already know from working in food service for years...), the really exciting part about this class is the project.

The project takes you through all 16 weeks, and you basically dream up your ideal restaurant concept, and then come up with a business plan.  There are going to be some more difficult steps during the rest of the semester (calculating food cost and then pricing menu items, coming up with front of the house and back of the house layouts, etc), right now is the really fun part - coming up with a concept, logo, and menu.

Today in class we had to present our basic concept - and there were more than a handful of bake shops (that's ok, I can handle a little competition!), but there was also tropical Caribbean restaurants, gastro-pubs, a pizzeria styled after a Brazilian steakhouse, and a lot of other really interesting ideas.  I think at least 98% of the world is nervous to stand up and speak in front of a bunch of strangers, so of course I was a little scared for that part, but I had so much fun designing my logos - yes, that's plural.  I had trouble deciding between two different names and logos, so I posted them to Facebook to ask for a little feedback from my super-supportive friends and family (thank you guys! you have no idea how awesome you have all been!), and then I took them both to class to take a vote there too.  Turns out, one of them won by a landslide in both votes!  So, drumrolllll....

Sweet Alyssum is the winner!  If you aren't familiar, Sweet Alyssum is a flower (hence the logo...duh) that my name is derived from.  I did end up changing the color from purple because I didn't want it to be too overly feminine.  Thanks again to everybody who helped me decide.

So after we presented our concepts today, our next assignment is to come up with our menu.  No prices yet, but we have to choose ten items (that's what the asterisks are for) to carry through the project that we will write recipes, calculate cost, price, etc.  Well I'm a nerd and lately I have WAY too much time on my hands, so I started as soon as I got home from school.  I can't even explain how different it is to be so excited about schoolwork - I don't think I even realized that was possible the first time around.  So here's what I've got so far - but it is set up in brochure format, so you have to use your imagination and pretend that it is printed 2-sided and then folded in thirds.  As usual, feedback is mucho appreciated!