Drexel students helping Carla Hall open a restaurant

Carla Hall, a Top Chef finalist, petite-cookie specialist and a star of TV's The Chew, has enlisted Drexel University's Center for Hospitality and Sport Management to develop a restaurant to open in New York.

Hall and her partners have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Carla Hall's Southern Kitchen, a fast-casual restaurant specializing in hot chicken. The restaurant is expected to open in in spring 2015 in New York, followed by a D.C. location.

The students at Drexel will get a firsthand education in opening a restaurant, as they work with Hall and her people on recipes, sourcing, figuring out costs, designing the kitchen, testing the kitchen, and hiring staff.  Fortunately, Drexel is a few blocks from 30th Street Station. Drexel also will have a similar kitchen setup on campus.

The project got to Drexel through James Feustel, director of Drexel's Department of Culinary Arts and Food Science, A longtime kitchen designer, he was originally consulted to work on the project himself. Last quarter, Hall visited Drexel, where she toured the facility and helped judge the final practicals of Michael Traud's Italian cooking class.

Drexel has even put this training on the schedule. It's "Culinary 465: Drexel Restaurant Lab, Students also can participate as an extension of the Drexel Food Lab.

One of the first assignments will be to take Hall's Nashville hot chicken recipe - which normally serves 4 to 6 people - and modify it to serve 600 people. And keep it hot and crispy all day.

Organizers said the restaurant will open regardless if the Kickstarter campaign is successful.