This article previously appeared in the November 2024 edition of The Commuter. Café times and menu items reflect that date.
Stepping inside the Santiam Café on the second floor of the Calapooia Center can be a bit of a surprise – it’s a far cry from the more casual, convenient dining experience you can get at the Courtyard Café or Roast Runners Coffee Shop. Rather than being a bustling hub of students picking up orders or studying while they drink coffee, Santiam has a more intimate vibe that mirrors high-end bistros in the city. Behind the wall, a sprawling commercial kitchen hums with activity from the chefs and workers – all LBCC Culinary Arts students – as they prepare the diverse array of dishes the café offers.
The Santiam Café and Bistro is open in-person on Mondays through Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and online on the same days from 9:30-10:30 a.m. During this time, anyone can order food through the website or in-person to pick up or eat in the restaurant. When asked about upcoming menu items to look forward to, program coordinator chef Josh Green had a few recommendations.
“Looking out, there’s one that I’m excited about,” explained Green. “It’s a basil and pistachio butter rigatoni with pancetta, cremini mushrooms, charred cherry tomatoes, broccoli, white wine, and shaved Parmesan. I just saw this thing on an Instagram reel for the basil pistachio butter, and they made a pasta out of it. I was like, that looks so delicious. I got the recipe, and I messed around with it, and I came up with this pasta recipe to put on the line, so I was really excited about that one.”
Prospective diners can also keep an eye out for clam chowder and bread bowls, as well as sourdough discard pretzels which will be served with a house-made smoked beer cheese sauce. Due to the nature of the café, things can be a bit more complicated than a traditional restaurant, but that’s what makes it unique.
“99.99% of the people only have good things to say, you know, but there are people who are like ‘Hey, this wasn’t cooked all the way’ or ‘I don’t like this,’” explained Green. “[I make sure] the students know that it’s not all good, positive feedback. You do mess up. I’ve been doing this for 22 years, I mess things up. It happens, but you need to know that you messed up so you can fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. You have to make food for the public, not for your own tastes.”
Green spoke about changes to the concept over the years. The Culinary Arts students used to manage the Commons Cafeteria as well as the Santiam Café and Bistro, but was forced to adapt when COVID-19 and budget cuts threw things into disarray.
“It used to be that it was a sit-down restaurant, the Santiam, and they had menus and servers would come and take your order,” Green said. “COVID changed everything for us.”
Despite the difficulty of changing the system, the café remains a way for students to learn and showcase their skills when cooking a wide variety of foods. The individuality of each student is highlighted with menu changes each week, all determined either by the students themselves or by Green.
“The way that we come up with the menu is, I’m out there talking to students like, ‘Hey guys, what do you think we should put on the menu for next term? What do you think are good ideas?’” said Green. “We like to come up with ideas together and then start testing. If I’m like, hey, I really want to do some sourdough bread and some sourdough items, [we’ll] start working on sourdough now and perfect the recipe. And with sourdough, the starter, you have to feed it every day and there’s what’s called discard that you dump out when you feed it. And so we’re going to put sourdough discard pretzels on the menu, so we’re not wasting that discard. … It’s all just about what’s current, what’s going on, what can we come up with where we’re making something and then utilizing a separate part of it – and just having fun with the students and seeing what they’re interested in.”
