On Sep­tem­ber 2, 2009, the Los Ange­les Times pub­lished "Dorm food gets schooled," an arti­cle on Saul Sutcher, a junior at Occi­den­tal Col­lege, who is "redefin­ing cui­sine with his cam­pus 'cafe.'" Saul, like many col­lege stu­dents, grew tired of the unin­spir­ing offer­ings of cafe­te­ria food. But instead of wal­low away with "over­cooked, unsea­soned pasta that lies on the plate as mush," Saul used his cook­ing skills and entre­pre­neur­ial vision to launch Cafe Nor­ris, a once-a-week gourmet cafe offer­ing such fares as duck ragu, pancetta-wrapped quail, and tarte aux pommes for dessert (pic­tures included in case you lack a gourmet cafe at your school / in your life).

The orig­i­nal arti­cle is well-worth a read (find out how a top-notch sum­mer intern­ship helped Saul pre­pare for dish­ing the goods at Cafe Nor­ris). Last week, I caught up with Saul to learn more about this awe­some ven­ture and find out how his expe­ri­ences in col­lege helped him achieve his gourmet goals.

Kevin F. Adler: What is Cafe Nor­ris, and where did the idea come from?

Saul Sutcher: Cafe Nor­ris is a cafe that I run out of a dor­mi­tory kitchen at Occi­den­tal Col­lege. We offer a fixed price meal on Sat­ur­day nights con­sist­ing of three courses: appe­tizer, main, and dessert. We show­case local sea­sonal ingre­di­ents and pre­pare sim­ple food that is a great break for stu­dents who may be tired of the din­ing hall. Not only is there good food, but din­ers sit at com­mu­nal tables, where one has the chance to meet new people.

Cafe Nor­ris really came about from a din­ner con­ver­sa­tion at my house – stem­ming from both the desire to cook while I was at school as well as really being sick of the din­ing hall food. Cafe Nor­ris seemed to be the per­fect rem­edy to both of these problems.

KFA: How did you do it? How were you able to cre­ate Cafe Norris?

SS: Cafe Nor­ris was a some­what slow process. Accu­mu­lat­ing twenty chairs, tables, sil­ver­ware, plates was not an easy task. Not to men­tion all of the cook­ing imple­ments and equip­ment. With the help of craigslist, and some flea mar­kets, Cafe Nor­ris really started com­ing together. One really impor­tant step that I took dur­ing the process was set­ting a goal for myself. I set a date for the first night of Cafe Nor­ris. I had 15 peo­ple signed up to come to din­ner that night, so I was really forced to find things quickly.

KFA: How sup­port­ive was the cam­pus com­mu­nity in launch­ing this ven­ture? What resources did you use to cre­ate Café Norris?

SS: Although the admin­is­tra­tion was not help­ful set­ting up and car­ry­ing out Cafe Nor­ris, Occi­den­tal def­i­nitely was as a whole. Friends of mine who were on com­mit­tees defended me dur­ing hous­ing meet­ings. A num­ber of Fac­ulty mem­bers came for­ward, send­ing me really nice emails show­ing their sup­port – which was great to hear, and really in a way moti­vated me. Get­ting a note from a pro­fes­sor say­ing that what you are doing out­side of class is an inspi­ra­tion to them was really spe­cial. These are the peo­ple I look up to in col­lege. Pro­fes­sors are big role mod­els for me not only in an aca­d­e­mic set­ting but in who they are and what they are doing with their lives.

KFA: How has your expe­ri­ence in col­lege pre­pared you for launch­ing this venture?

SS: Aca­d­e­m­i­cally, col­lege helped a lot with Cafe Nor­ris. Col­lege has given me the insight that if you really want some­thing, no mat­ter how hard the mate­r­ial is, no mat­ter how big the task, you will be able to get that A or accom­plish the goal you set out to achieve. It gave me the con­fi­dence that I could get Cafe Nor­ris up and run­ning.

KFA: Did you have a good sense of what col­lege would be like out of high school? Were you right? What sur­prised you?

SS: Com­ing out of high school I really thought col­lege was a place where you sat down in front of pro­fes­sors and you were bom­barded with all sorts of bor­ing facts and you would be writ­ing all sorts of papers on books that were way too long to fin­ish. But what I didn't real­ize is that col­lege isn't about the facts, it isn't about the long books; it's about learn­ing how to learn – which was unbe­liev­ably impor­tant in cre­at­ing Cafe Nor­ris. Learn­ing how to teach your­self skills, how to solve a prob­lem … that is what is impor­tant. That is what I love about college.

KFA: If you had five min­utes to talk to a group of high school stu­dents about col­lege, what would you tell them?

SS: There is really one piece of advice that I would give to any­one in high school: don't do some­thing because you think that is what you should be doing. Do the thing that you want to be doing. Whether that is going to the col­lege you want to go to, not the one you think you should go to, or tak­ing a class because you think you should take it, take the class that you want to take. The rest of your life out of high school is about you, and so live the life you want to live don't let peo­ple tell you what life you should be living.

KFA: Is there any­thing else you would like to share on your col­lege expe­ri­ence, Cafe Nor­ris, or the impact col­lege has had on you per­son­ally or professionally?

SS: If you want some­thing badly enough, then don't let any­one or any­thing get in your way of achiev­ing your goals.