Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Center

With stainless steel polished to a mirror-like finish, Scott Community College officially opened its new Culinary Arts & Hospitality Management Center on September 22, 2010.

The 10,000-square-foot, $2.3 million facility center is located at SCC’s main campus in Bettendorf and is home for the college’s Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management and Events Management programs.

A major part of the funding for the facility resulted from a 2007 bond referendum approved by the voters of the Eastern Iowa Community Colleges service area.

The Culinary Arts & Hospitality Management Center boasts a culinary instructional lab with television monitors providing students with different angles of the stovetops and ovens as instructors prepare their foods. Behind the culinary lab is a baking lab with butcher block tables and ovens for students to learn the finer points of baking. The facility also includes commercial dishwashers, compactors and other equipment students will encounter in the workplace.

Individuals entering the building feel as if they have entered an actual hotel lobby with a desk and reception area to one side and the dining lab on the other. The dining lab is used by students in the Hospitality and Events Management programs and doubles as classroom space. Those students also utilize a full hotel bedroom suite and a laundry/linen room.

The entire building has been outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment equal to or better than the students will find once they enter the working world.

SCC’s Culinary Arts program began in 1991, Hospitality Management in 2007, and Events Management in 2011. Both the Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management programs are two-year degree programs. More than 100 students are currently enrolled in the programs.