You should see their "classroom"
It is a complete commercial kitchen setup, and they have an area out front with 6 tables and 3 booths because they serve breakfast and lunch to the public. It's easily the area's best kept secret because whenever we go there for breakfast I've never seen more than 4 people there; lunches have better attendance because some faculty members stop by. So, not only do you have the students planning the weekly menu, they also cook it, wait on you, bus tables after you, and handle the billing too. That way they're learning restaurant management in addition to culinary skills.
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
