Café Dewey

Most of the information I found at the Monadnock Regional School District website.

I used what I found there and made it my own to suit my needs.

A little school background…I work at a private school with students in grades 1st-12th. All my students are “different learners” they have reading/learning/attention challenges. Our classes have no more than 10 students in each. I did this with my 1st-5th graders and three middle school classes. High school classes didn’t have time to spare.

First…Gathering the equipment

I had just as much fun trying to find all the different things I wanted to use to make it seem “authentic” to the students.

I bought most of my things but you may be able to borrow from friends, coworkers, or the cafeteria. At my school we don’t have a hot lunch service so that wasn’t an option for me. Most of the items were fairly reasonable plus, I can reuse them many times over. (The restaurant equipment store is fun to shop in! The store also had cloth chef’s hat and aprons which I will buy at another time or I will compare prices at Michael’s Arts and Crafts)

Stores I went to:
Restaurant Equipment
Dollar Tree
Party City
Target
(Michael’s Arts and Crafts)

Equipment

4 Plastic checkered tablecloths (2 red and 2 blue checked) (Dollar Tree

4 Vases (Dollar Tree)

4 Flowers (plastic; 2 red, 2 blue) (Dollar Tree)

4 Serving Trays 16 x 12; 2 red/2 blue (Restaurant Equipment)

4 Thank You trays

4 Bread Baskets 2 red, 2 black (they didn’t have red)

2 Bus Tubs (black 5” deep)

2 Chef’s Hats (Party City)

4 Aprons (Party City)

Hand Towels (didn’t use)

4 Clipboards with pencils attached with curling ribbon (red/blue) (I already had)

Dry Erase markers with erasers attached (Dollar Tree)

Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses (Target, 40 oz bag)

Shelf Markers

Menus (class set, printed on colored paper, laminated)

Placemat games (laminated, class set) crosswords, word searches, mazes, word scramble, etc.

Reserved sign (laminated)

Guest Check

Old ties from your husband or dad (I used my dad’s ugly 60s ties for students and I wore my husband’s old skinny tie from the 80s)

Plastic Container to hold it all from Target Sterilite Latching Box 66 qt (62L) ($8.99)

Lots of Fun!

Café Dewey Job Descriptions

Maitre d’ (Head Waitress/Librarian) – (tie, white blouse/shirt, black pants)
Customer – (dress-up clothes, fancy hats) placemat games (crosswords, word searches, mazes; color bookmarks/placemats, or a “breadbasket” of jokes/riddles), menus
Wait staff – (tie, apron, tray, clipboard, order form pad) takes customer’s order and gives it to the chef
Chef – (Hat, hairnet) seated in the kitchen (OPAC), prepares the meal by searching for the topic/subject; writes down the ingredients (title/call number)
Sous Chef – (apron, hairnet) finds the book and hands it to the waiter/waitress (uses shelf markers to keep the book’s place). Waiter/waitress places the book on a tray and serves the customers.
Busboy/girl – (apron, bus tub, towel over arm) reshelve books once customers are done “eating” unless customer decides to have a “to go bag” (checkout).

Making Menus, Placemats, Signage

Menu

I used the Café Dewey website as samples and made up my own menu. I made sure I had books under that particular Dewey number. Next time I think I may have less “selections” because it became overwhelming for many students. Some students commented that there wasn’t a “dessert” section. I said everyone will get dessert (Hershey’s Kisses).

Placemats/Guest Check

I made a double sided placemat 11×17. I went to Discovery Education to make the crosswords, word searches, and mazes. I went to TeAch-nology, Inc.  to make a word scrambler puzzle. I tried to keep it all with library terms and words to keep the theme going. I print everything out and cut them to fit on the larger paper. I made copies and laminated to reuse for each class. My son helped me make a “guest check” in Photo Shop the way I wanted it.

Signs

I made signs for the computers just stating Kitchen #1, Kitchen #2. I only needed 2 but made 4 for future use (we have small class sizes). I also made a “Welcome to Café Dewey” sign with clip art. I made a “Reserved” sign to make it seem special. Plus, if any students came in to use the library to make up a test or do work, they would know not to sit there.

Café Dewey

I set up the 2 tables before the class came in. If they were running late, I’d go to the room and say their 12:30 reservation is ready. The students had no idea what I was talking about, and the teachers’ vaguely did. When they came in I said something along the lines of “Welcome to Café Dewey. This is a new restaurant. Please remember that I expect you to use your restaurant manners and to please be patient since my staff is also very new at this. In fact, I can use some help in the kitchen (hands shoot up) typing on the computer (half the hands go down and I choose my chefs, sous chef and wait staff).”  The rest of the students are customers and I seat them at their “reserved” tables.

Everyone is very excited and getting into the mood. I have my chefs put on their hats and sit at the computers, the sous chefs put on their aprons, and the waiter/waitress put on their tie and apron. The wait staff pass out the menus (I had the waiters in one class write down the call numbers they chose and the other classes I had the customers circle their choices with the dry erase makers, it went faster).

Wait staff give the menus to the chef to start searching for titles. The wait staff pass out the placemats/puzzles with markers (bread baskets) while they wait (which is the hardest part…waiting! I remind them this is a new restaurant and it takes time and patience). The chef writes down a title and call number on the guest check paper and hands it off to the sous chef to find the books to give to the waitress to pass out to the customers (everyone is “served” their book together, not one at a time). The customers “eat” (read) their books. When they are done, a busboy/busgirl or waiters/waitresses clears away what they “ate”. (I didn’t have a separate busboy because I was short on students, not enough customers) The waiters/waitresses would put 1 Hershey’s Kiss for each customer on a Thank You tray and say “Thank you for coming to Café Dewey.” I would give the chefs/waiters/waitresses (and teacher) a Hershey’s Kiss too. They asked if it was real and if they could really eat it right now (I don’t allow food in the library).

Some students wanted to check out their book and I said they could have a “to go bag” (they just checked out the book). We switched roles and repeated everything and it always went a bit smoother since they all knew what to expect. I did not repeat the chocolate, one piece is plenty.

The waiting is always the hardest part to deal with. I helped the chefs and wait staff with finding books. Next year I plan on doing this sooner in the year as an intro to Dewey and repeat again 1 to 2 more times throughout the school year.

The worst moment was when the principal was in the library giving a perspective family a tour of the school when a middle school student said, “The serve sucks!” I reminded the student that this is a new restaurant and we still use our manners.

The best part is having fun and the students truly did enjoy it. They asked if they could do this every week.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the website and LM_NET postings.