The spirit of New Orleans was alive and well in Philadelphia at our annual Walnut Hill College Mardi Gras celebration. The Mardi Gras parades are known all over the world for their bright colors, bold costumes, and over-the-top festivities, and our students and staff pulled out all the stops to recreate some of the drama of this popular holiday!

Today €™s party literally included all the bells and whistles of a traditional Mardi Gras celebration, as members of our Hospitality Engagement Club paraded through the Courtyard donning masks and using noisemakers to rally their fellow students. Beads rained down from our rooftop deck into the crowd, another tribute to the New Orleans celebration that made the day all the more exciting! And of course, our clubs featured everything from freshly-made pierogies straight from our kitchens to Mardi Gras inspired mocktails. Thanks to all of our students and staff for an awesome turnout and some amazing food, beverages, and memorably good times!

On Monday, the Walnut Hill College family got together for yet another exciting event: our annual Chinese New Year celebration! As always, the Student Activities Department put together a festive display in our Courtyard and several of our clubs came out in full force to celebrate 2016, the Year of the Monkey.

Students took part in a Chinese tea tasting and tea trivia game courtesy of the Foodie and Yearbook clubs. Cocktail Club delighted the masses with Orange Blossom mocktails, while our Arts Appreciation Club invited students to design and create their own pieces of artwork to commemorate the occasion. To top it all off, our Hospitality Engagement Club treated everyone to an amazing display and tasting of homemade fortune cookies! It was truly a fantastic event and we can €™t wait to top it next year!

Thanks Iron Knife Films  and Properpix!

For the launch of our new website, The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College teamed up with Iron Knife Films and Properpix for what turned out to be our most amazing video and photo shoot yet! Preparation began early in the morning with the arranging of lush flowers, dramatic candles, and fine place settings in our Italian Trattoria as part of a fantastic tablescape scene featuring some of our Management students. Lights and cameras adorned just about every corner of every kitchen and dining room to capture our talented students in action as they prepped, cooked, and plated an eclectic array of dishes.

We didn €™t want to miss a single moment of the amazing work our students created, so our shoot went on well into the evening, wrapping just after midnight! It was hard work, but we are truly proud of the final product and are excited to share it with everyone. Thank you to all of the teams at Iron Knife Films and Properpix as well as all of the students and staff members who played a part in today €™s shoot.