Colorado State Students

Students in Charge at the Aspen Grille

Updated April 2009

The latest in fine dining is available on campus at the award-winning Aspen Grille, located in the University Club in the Lory Student Center.

Visitors to the Aspen Grille find young servers wearing black slacks and shoes and champagne button-down shirts delivering attractive salads, sandwiches, and entrees to customers. Tables elegantly covered with pale green linen tablecloths and chairs upholstered in a leaf-motif fabric complement the paintings and photographs of aspens that decorate the walls. A glass wall facing west offers a panorama of the Colorado foothills.

The restaurant's locally-focused menu supports the sustainable agriculture movement in Northern Colorado.

No ordinary restaurant

Despite appearances, this is no ordinary restaurant. For students majoring in restaurant and resort management, the Aspen Grille is a working classroom where they earn credits rather than paychecks. Five days a week, students work in the kitchen, serve customers, tend bar, and participate in virtually every aspect of the restaurant’s operations.

A unique partnership

Aspen Grille evolved from a partnership between the Division of Student Affairs and the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Eager to offer a higher-end dining experience on campus, Student Affairs picked up the tab to remodel part of the University Club in the Lory Student Center. Restaurant and resort management students, wishing to practice what they were learning, worked with their professors to decide on the kitchen layout, dining room decor, place settings, menu offerings, pricing, restaurant philosophy, and other details.

Students conducted a feasibility study and then determined that the menu would offer simple, innovative cuisine, made primarily from locally and regionally produced foods. Diners have the opportunity to enjoy Colorado cuisine ranging from handcrafted ice creams and sorbets to a pulled pork sandwich and seasonal vegetables grown by the CSU Specialty Crops Program.

Keeping it green takes innovation

Greens are grown on campus and biked to the Grille for service the day of harvest.

The newest "green" feature is "Carbon Neutral" lettuce, grown by students in the greenhouse located on Lake Street. The unique greens are biked to the Grille for service the day of harvest. This way the greens are grown and transported without the use of fossil fuels

The decor also carries on the restaurant’s "home grown" philosophy. Colorado State graduates Becky Everitt and Bill Cotton provided, respectively, the aspen watercolors and photographs adorning the walls, and small wooden boxes holding sugar packets were made by another local alumnus.

Reservations

The Aspen Grille is located on the upper level of the Lory Student Center and can accommodate as many as 50 people. Tables seat from one to four diners, and individual seating is also available at the bar. Please call (970) 491-7006 for reservations.