Every day is like opening day at Vita Nova

Ever wonder what keeps UD running smoothly? Up Close & Personnel, a weekly feature, profiles the employees who keep UD ticking around the clock throughout the year. This week, the focus is on Vita Nova.

Debbie Ellingsworth, sous chef

3:19 p.m., Oct. 13, 2004--Vita Nova is like an optical-illusion drawing that appears to be one thing from one vantage point, while it is something else entirely if you stand a few feet away. The closely knit group of hotel, restaurant and institutional management (HRIM) students and the four-person team of instructors at Vita Nova see Vita Nova as a restaurant laboratory. Guests see it as an award-winning restaurant so popular that lunch is usually booked weeks ahead.

Thinking on your feet is part of the job description for the four professional managers at Vita Nova, the HRIM student-run restaurant in the Trabant University Center. They guide students who rotate into new Vita Nova jobs every single day.

Debbie Ellingsworth, AS ‘77, sous chef at Vita Nova, said she cries her eyes out at every graduation ceremony because instructors and students work so closely for four years. “They all come up to me and say, ‘Don’t cry, Debbie. We’ll come back and see you,’’’ she said.

Julie Fagan, director of restaurant operations

Ellingsworth, who managed the kitchen at Pizza by Elizabeths in Greenville and taught pastry classes in community college before coming to Vita Nova in 1997, said she likes working with the students because every day is different and she can see the students mature and master skills. She said she loves Homecoming, when Vita Nova fills with HRIM alumni celebrating with staff and current students.

Julie Fagan, CHEP ‘96, director of restaurant operations, managed Fieldstone Golf Club before coming to Vita Nova in 2002.

Bernd Mayer, who has spent almost 50 years in the hospitality business in the U.S., Bermuda and Europe, is dining room manager. He said he likes the fact that the program accepts only 100 students a year, so with a student body of 400, the instructors can get to know all the students over the four years they spend on campus.

Joseph DiGregorio, a Culinary Institute of America grad, ran the ARAMARK catering department on campus before he put the chef’s hat on at Vita Nova. He said he toured Vita Nova’s kitchen in 1996, and it made him want to get cooking again.

Bernd Mayer, dining room manager

“I love working with the students. What really impresses me about them is they rotate positions so they have to come up to speed very fast,’’ he said. “Every day for us is like opening day because there’s someone new in every position every night.’’

Sometimes the crème brulee is burned or an electrical outage makes candles function as more than mood lighting, but the professional staff, longtime dishwasher George Bivens and the students team up to keep things operating flawlessly.

Joseph DiGregorio, executive chef

The esprit de corps extends to the guests too--even on one Friday evening when they all had to leave their tables and stand outside for about 45 minutes after a fire alarm in the building.

“The place was packed. The fire alarm goes off. It shuts all the gas off,’’ DiGregorio said. “We have someone escorting guests out the front, and we’re escorting everyone out back. Finally we got back in. It was great because everybody came back, every guest. We relit all the pilots, and we picked right back up. It was like the whole party started all over again.”

Article by Kathy Canavan
Photos by Kevin Quinlan

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