Comments on: Visiting the New England Culinary Institute http://www.culinaryagoge.com/2009/07/visiting-the-new-england-culinary-institute/ My experiences in the world of food. Fri, 28 May 2010 00:27:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Paul Sorgule http://www.culinaryagoge.com/2009/07/visiting-the-new-england-culinary-institute/comment-page-1/#comment-88 Paul Sorgule Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:52:31 +0000 http://www.culinaryagoge.com/?p=418#comment-88 Well, we obviously dropped the ball on this one. My apologies for a series of poor guest service performances, this is not the NECI norm. I can assure you that your comments will be shared with all parties at various points of contact. To answer a few of your points, yes we did close our restaurant in Burlington for the primary reason that it was very difficult to maintain a level of continuity of teaching with 35 miles separating our campuses. Montpelier is and has always been the primary location for our institute and we felt that keeping our faculty and students together on one campus was the right move. In Montpelier we offer two a'la carte restaurants with separate menus: The Main Street Grill and our Small Plates restaurant on the lower level. Additionally, NECI operates training food services at Vermont College and the headquarters for National Life Insurance Company and our bakery operations at LaBrioche with finishing bakeshops in all of our other outlets. Students change blocks of training every 3 weeks or so to insure their exposure to various line positions and restaurant concepts. There are classrooms attached to the Main Street Grill as well as other facilities shared with Vermont College, teaching and operations kitchens in all of our facilities, and residence halls at Vermont College. It is always difficult to correct poor service once a guest has departed and if we are able to make amends during a future visit to the area, I would be pleased to host you as our guest in our operations. Other than that, please rest assured that your comments will be taken seriously as we work to make sure that this does not occur in the future. Thanks you for your comments and the time that you spent to post them. I always believe that a customer who takes the time to point out problem areas is giving an operation a chance to improve. I thank you for the learning experience. Paul Sorgule Provost New England Culinary Institute paul.sorgule@neci.edu Well, we obviously dropped the ball on this one. My apologies for a series of poor guest service performances, this is not the NECI norm. I can assure you that your comments will be shared with all parties at various points of contact.

To answer a few of your points, yes we did close our restaurant in Burlington for the primary reason that it was very difficult to maintain a level of continuity of teaching with 35 miles separating our campuses. Montpelier is and has always been the primary location for our institute and we felt that keeping our faculty and students together on one campus was the right move.

In Montpelier we offer two a’la carte restaurants with separate menus: The Main Street Grill and our Small Plates restaurant on the lower level. Additionally, NECI operates training food services at Vermont College and the headquarters for National Life Insurance Company and our bakery operations at LaBrioche with finishing bakeshops in all of our other outlets. Students change blocks of training every 3 weeks or so to insure their exposure to various line positions and restaurant concepts.

There are classrooms attached to the Main Street Grill as well as other facilities shared with Vermont College, teaching and operations kitchens in all of our facilities, and residence halls at Vermont College.

It is always difficult to correct poor service once a guest has departed and if we are able to make amends during a future visit to the area, I would be pleased to host you as our guest in our operations. Other than that, please rest assured that your comments will be taken seriously as we work to make sure that this does not occur in the future.

Thanks you for your comments and the time that you spent to post them. I always believe that a customer who takes the time to point out problem areas is giving an operation a chance to improve. I thank you for the learning experience.

Paul Sorgule
Provost
New England Culinary Institute
paul.sorgule@neci.edu

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