The Food Network program hosted by Robert Irvine visited the university for help in revamping the nearby University Grill. The show airs May 23.
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The work of Elon University students and faculty will be featured May 23 at 10 p.m. on the Food Network’s broadcast of “Restaurant: Impossible” featuring acclaimed chef Robert Irvine, who visited Burlington in late February and early March to revamp the University Grill eatery on West Webb Avenue.
As part of the visit, faculty and students in the Department of Art and Art History painted a mural on the outside of the restaurant. Students in Associate Professor Lee Bush’s upper-level marketing course offered consumer feedback on the University Grill, including its strengths and weaknesses.
Bush’s students then “flash mobbed” two other classrooms to get spontaneous thoughts from their peers as way of conducting impromptu market research.
Now in its second season, “Restaurant: Impossible” attempts to save restaurants from impending failure in just two days with only $10,000. Over the course of each program, Irvine assesses all of the restaurant’s facets and overhauls its weakest spots with updates to menus, retraining staff and implementing aesthetic changes with the help of his design team, before hitting the streets to tell the community about the improved restaurant.