The Dog House goes fancy for Valentine’s Day
Students pose at their tables in the Dog House Grill before the restaurant serves a fancy Valentine’s Day meal.
Photo credit: Patrick O’Brien
By Natalie Guske
The Dog House was temporarily transformed on Valentine’s Day from a casual American grill into a high-class restaurant, offering students a fine dining experience without having to step foot off campus.
This novel idea took root in the mind of Tim Bergdolt, the Dog House’s manager of retail operations, when while decorating for Halloween a coworker mentioned “how awesome it would be to do a date night in the Dog House by shutting it down and changing it into fine dining.”
“We thought it’d be a really fun idea to do that sometime in the future and with Valentine’s Day coming around, we decided it was a good time to put it on,” Bergdolt said. “As soon as I mentioned the idea to Patrick, he was very excited about it, wanting to talk about menus and [the logistics of it].”
Instead of serving their usual fare of burgers and fries, Director of Dining Services Patrick O’Brien decided to elevate the cuisine by opting for an Italian-themed menu.
“I think it was Italian from the jump,” O’Brien said. “[Not only is Italian] simplistic, it’s also highly acceptable to all the students, very popular, and easy to execute.”
In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, the Dog House put out advertisements around campus in hopes of enticing students to reserve a table. By the day of the dinner, about 15 groups of students had made reservations.
“It’s new for all of us since we’ve never done fine dining and reservations here in the Dog House,” Bergdolt said. “So we were happy [that we were] able to have some student marketers talk to students as they came into a dining hall [Thursday] to boost those numbers up as well. But anybody we get for the first time around we’d be happy with.”
As Friday evening arrived and students who made reservations started to trickle in, they found the Dog House transformed into the high-class restaurant the flyers promised, complete with cloth-covered tables and soft jazz music playing in the background.
“It exceeded [my expectations],” freshman Audrey Burmeister said. “The service is great and so are the decorations. They really put in the work.”
Not only were dinners blown away by the delicious food and tasteful decorations, but they were pleasantly surprised at the peacefulness of their dining experience.
“I like how personal the atmosphere is,” junior Sara Erikson said. “You get to chat with whoever’s at your table, and even at tables around you, [without] having yell to be heard.”
With one Valentine’s Day dinner in the books, the Dog House has proved that it can be versatile, opening the door for the staff to plan new and exciting dining opportunities for students.
“I think the Valentine’s Day dinner is a great stepping stone for introducing different concepts in here,” O’Brien said. “We could do ramen bowls one night, or turn it into a barbecue concept, a taqueria, or whatever it could be—this is a great starting point.”
