Every week, 52 students prepare a meal for their peers as part of their FCNS 320 class.

Operating as a fully-functional restaurant, Ellington’s serves as the backdrop for nutrition and hospitality administration majors looking to further their knowledge in preparing a menu and serving a three-course meal.

This semester, those menus introduce a new feature: wine.

“One of the things we consistently heard was that we need to teach our students about wine,” said Joan Quinn, coordinator of food systems labs and class instructor. “It was brought in as an educational thing for the students so they could learn about specific wine varietals and also so that they could learn to serve wine.”

Quinn expects wine to be a popular attraction among the majority adult crowd at Ellington’s, which is composed of faculty and staff members.

One red and one white wine choice are available with each meal depending on the day’s menu. Wine ranges from $4.50 to $6.50 a glass in addition to the flat fee of $9.00 per full meal.

Emily Toth, graduate student in nutrition and dietetics, works as the food lab assistant at the restaurant. Her duties include supervising her fellow students with their “pre-preps,” a lengthy process involving the preparing of the meals and menus.

Toth, in her fifth and final semester of the program, said her favorite part of the job is watching new students prepare their first successful meal. She also mentioned that the addition of wine to the menu has shown students another important angle of the restaurant industry.

“There was a demand that students should come out with knowledge of wine,” Toth said, “And there is more of a demand for jobs of people who know about food and wine.”

Mitch Kielb, director of the Holmes Student Center, approves the addition of wines to the menu, stating that wine and food pairing is a valuable part of establishing a successful upper-tier restaurant.

Kielb mentioned that everyone he knows looks forward to the day Ellington’s opens each semester; this year being no different.

“It’s a great service for campus,” Kielb said. “You get a real upscale meal at affordable prices. It’s something you could not provide any other way other than having students working in this environment.”

For more on Ellington’s, including nutritional information and a full menu, go to www.ellingtons.niu.edu/.