Williamson contains a tasty secret few Tech students know about. The 70 year old building houses the Williamson Dining Room.

The brick and metal archway of Williamson Dining Room leads a student into a bustling, yet relaxed, dining experience that leaves the quiet campus behind. Inside hurried servers take food and drinks to hungry customers and music softly plays in the background.

A lounge area is set up to the left of the counter and original paintings and photographs adorn the pine walls. The Williamson Dining Room is currently set up to seat 72 patrons comfortably at 18 tables.

Eating in the Williamson Dining Room is a different type of dining experience for Tech students, said Assistant Professor Ray Moll of the hospitality administration program.

Williamson Dining Room offers students, staff and the Russellville community a nice place to eat upscale cuisine at lunch or dinner. A three-course lunch is served on Wednesdays for only $6.95, which includes a beverage. Beginning Oct. 2, a three-course dinner by reservation will be served on Thursday evenings; the price starts at $15.95.

Gratuities received during the meals go toward the Walters-Williams Scholarship.

Tech students who work in the Williamson Dining Room do so as part of a course. Tasks that students perform in the dining room consist of cooking, serving, cashiering and cleaning. The students that prepared and served the first lunch of the fall term on Sept. 10 were from the casual dining course and the introduction to food and beverage course.

The meal on Sept. 10 consisted of tortilla soup, tequila-lime grilled chicken wrap, and bread pudding with whiskey sauce.

“It was good,” said senior Jaime Nelson, an English major from Paris. Nelson was dining with her sister, Jodi Bell, a senior English major from Paris and Wanda Choate, a secretary in the English department.

The dining room, which opened in 2002, has been a great educational tool for the hospitality administration program.

The dining room allows many courses to be taught that would otherwise be difficult to teach with only textbook learning rather than hands-on experience, explained Moll.

“It’s giving me the ability to work with different characters and attitudes. It’s really trying to show me patience,” said senior Ryan Fendley, a hospitality administration major from Mountain View.

Fendley has had courses in the dining room, which also functioned as a food lab, during previous semesters.

The hospitality administration program was started 1983. The program was then known as the hotel and restaurant management program.

For more information about the Williamson Dining Room or to make a dinner reservation call 968-0378.