College of DuPage board votes to close Waterleaf Restaurant, transition it to education facility

The controversial and unprofitable Waterleaf Restaurant at the College of DuPage will close at the end of the month and make way for new culinary programming.

The school's Board of Trustees voted during its Aug. 13 special meeting to close the restaurant effective Aug. 31. The move puts an end to one of the biggest lightning rods for public scorn over the last year, due to $2 million in deficits and reports of expensive trustee meals at the upscale, on-campus restaurant.

Board Chairwoman Kathy Hamilton said the move ended "the vain existence of the Waterleaf restaurant, a monument for disrespecting taxpayers and disregarding students."

The restaurant will close its doors just a month short of its fourth birthday after Trustee Charles Bernstein led a committee to examine the future of the restaurant earlier this summer. The board also received several staff presentations on how to utilize the space should the restaurant close.

Bernstein said the current set-up – where students staff the front and back of the restaurant on Monday and Tuesday nights and it operates as a professional restaurant the rest of the week – served no educational function. At a June 25 board meeting, Bernstein said his investigation came to the conclusion that the professional aspect came at the behest of President Robert Breuder, who is now on administrative leave.

The 5-1 vote to close the restaurant, with Trustee Joe Wozniak voting against and Trustee Erin Birt absent, means that 19 of the remaining employees would each receive a total severance package of $49,232. Two more resigned effective Sunday, according to board documents, but will not receive severance because they left for other opportunities.

The closure also provides some relief to the college's budget, as the Waterleaf lost more than a half million dollars each year it was open – though Bernstein said that number may have exceeded $3 million over its lifetime.

By closing the restaurant, the school also paved the way for college faculty to take over the space for additional lab space.

Dean for Business and Technology Donna Stewart said the school would move at least one additional course into the space, as well as move several existing courses there as soon as next term. From there, faculty would review the entire culinary and hospitality curricula and add courses needed to prepare the school's students for jobs in the real world.

Wozniak credited his no vote to a hope that the school would still be able to have the space run by an outside source several days a week.

Vice Chairman Deanne Mazzochi said she had long been concerned about the running of the space as a purely private enterprise, but didn't discount reopening the restaurant as part of the curriculum at a later date, comparing it to the existing Wheat Cafe.

She said the Illinois Community College Act stated that auxiliary services should be mainly directed at students.

"The focus of the program will go back to actually educating students," she said.

Faculty Senate President Glenn Hanson said the decision was a fantastic one.

"It's what we have been asking for," he said. "We wanted more opportunities for students to work there, but this is even better."