每日大赛

Student club provides biweekly pop-up cafe at 每日大赛’s Blount County campus

Students, faculty, staff and visitors to 每日大赛’s Blount County campus who may need a pick-me-up in the way of a sweet treat or caffeine can now find both at the Culinary Club Pop-Up Cafe.

Hosted by students in 每日大赛’s Culinary Club, the cafe is open at the Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center on Mondays and Thursdays between 10 a.m. and noon, and offers homemade cinnamon rolls, freshly baked cookies and coffee – hot or iced, with a variety of flavorful syrups to punch them up – and more seasonal goods.

“It’s an outlet for the culinary program,” said Natalie McGuire, Pellissippi student and secretary of the Culinary Club. “It’s here on campus, but not just in the back corner of the kitchen.”

The cafe allows not just Culinary Arts students to practice what they’re learning, but also for members of the club that are not a part of the culinary program to expand their own palette.

All sorts of different students participate in the club, McGuire said, including business, nursing and education majors.

“I think it helps connect us as a student body,” she said of the cafe.

Funds from the cafe support Culinary Club meetings, activities and the cafe itself.

Chef Ben Cummings, instructor in the Culinary Arts program and adviser to the Culinary Club, also foresees funds from the cafe helping Culinary Arts students return to competitions like the American Culinary Federation Southeast Regional Culinary Competition, in which they earned a bronze medal earlier this year.

The cafe offers an entrepreneurial opportunity and experience to students well before they enter the industry on that same level, Cummings said. The students create schedules, hire managers and forecast sales to create inventory for the cafe, he said.

“It's amazing,” Cummings emphasized. “This has given them an opportunity to learn how to run a business, which is everything that we prepare them for in class, and they're just doing it.”

Many students in the club want to be entrepreneurs, and the experience they get working at the cafe – chatting with customers, preparing and selling food and beverages – prepares them for that.

“It's a little bit lower stakes, but it gives us an opportunity to act like entrepreneurs,” said McGuire, who is slated to graduate in fall 2026.

Nikki Turnmire, a nontraditional student who runs her own baking business, said that working behind the counter of the cafe gives her an opportunity to get to know classmates like McGuire better, because they can have conversations and bond in a way they may not have time for in class.

It’s also been a chance for Turnmire, who specializes in cakes, to practice baking cinnamon rolls, which she sells for only $5 a pop at the cafe.

“I feel like I'm getting to really master the craft of cinnamon rolls,” said Turnmire as she and McGuire operated the cafe and also gathered donations for the Culinary Club Food Drive.

The Culinary Club partnered with XHUNGER for the food drive to collect non-perishable food items and toiletries for the Pellissippi Pantry.

The Pellissippi Pantry dispenses food, clothing and other basic necessities at no cost to the college community across all four of Pellissippi’s campuses.

“We want the students to engage through donating,” Cummings said. “Now that we've accumulated an audience with the cafe, we hope to bring awareness to the pantry and students helping students.”