Hotel on MSU Denver campus opens restaurant
SpringHill Suites Denver Downtown — the only hotel on a college campus in Colorado — has added an upscale, full-service restaurant, expanding the hotel's appeal and growing its partnership with Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Events.
Degree Metropolitan Food + Drink is situated in a former test kitchen for MSU Denver's growing hospitality department, across the driveway from the hotel proper. Like the SpringHill Suites, it is run by industry professionals but offers internships to students specializing in restaurant management.
Scott Perry, hotel general manager, said that he’s received numerous requests from guests in the three years his facility has been open for an on-site restaurant.
Degree will meet that demand — especially in the colder winter months, when guests would have to cross either Auraria Parkway or Speer Boulevard to get to an eatery — and is likely to make the hotel more attractive to corporate travelers especially, he said.
Led by executive chef Daniel Hyman, who formerly cooked at restaurants in Chicago and at The Corner Office downtown, Degree will specialize in locally sourced foods and Colorado beers and spirits.
Salads, sausages and meals like gnocchi salmon will highlight the menu, while the restaurant will pour 20 Colorado craft beers and 16 wines from a temperature-controlled Cruvinet system.
Carol Krugman, chairwoman of the 770-student hospitality department, said students working internships at the restaurant will spend half a semester cooking and half of the semester waiting tables and serving as hosts.
The 48-seat restaurant can be a learning laboratory for people who will go on to operate restaurants for a living, she said.
“This is a commercial venture, so what it gives our students is the understanding that they are working in the real world,” Krugman said. “We’re not training chefs. But we are training people who are going to be managing the restaurants. And you can’t manage what you don’t know.”
Reported by: Denver Business Journal
Degree Metropolitan Food + Drink is situated in a former test kitchen for MSU Denver's growing hospitality department, across the driveway from the hotel proper. Like the SpringHill Suites, it is run by industry professionals but offers internships to students specializing in restaurant management.
Scott Perry, hotel general manager, said that he’s received numerous requests from guests in the three years his facility has been open for an on-site restaurant.
Degree will meet that demand — especially in the colder winter months, when guests would have to cross either Auraria Parkway or Speer Boulevard to get to an eatery — and is likely to make the hotel more attractive to corporate travelers especially, he said.
Led by executive chef Daniel Hyman, who formerly cooked at restaurants in Chicago and at The Corner Office downtown, Degree will specialize in locally sourced foods and Colorado beers and spirits.
Salads, sausages and meals like gnocchi salmon will highlight the menu, while the restaurant will pour 20 Colorado craft beers and 16 wines from a temperature-controlled Cruvinet system.
Carol Krugman, chairwoman of the 770-student hospitality department, said students working internships at the restaurant will spend half a semester cooking and half of the semester waiting tables and serving as hosts.
The 48-seat restaurant can be a learning laboratory for people who will go on to operate restaurants for a living, she said.
“This is a commercial venture, so what it gives our students is the understanding that they are working in the real world,” Krugman said. “We’re not training chefs. But we are training people who are going to be managing the restaurants. And you can’t manage what you don’t know.”
Reported by: Denver Business Journal
