Most of us have visited Liberty Science Center before, but on 10/19/11, the Livingston Robotics Club FLL and Jr. FLL teams got a behind-the-scene tour of the Skyline Cafe food service operation.

From loading dock to plate, the Director of LSC’s Restaurant Associates, Tom Lambert, took the members from 7 LRC FLL and Jr. FLL teams for a closer look at how this science museum put food safety as one of their top priorities for their guests.  This is part of  the LRC’s members-only “Meet the Experts” research field trips.

Our teams started the guided tour from the loading dock to learn about how food is safely delivered and received at the center. The design of the back-of-the-house area enable a expeditious unloading and storing of the fresh goods to the lower level kitchen, which is equipped with state-of-the-art refrigeration and backup system.  From there, the huge freight elevator bring food to the upper kitchen, where all the favorite dishes were prepared in a meticulously clean, sanitized and inspected environment.  Once the food is readied to be served at Skyline Cafe, there is another set of stringent protocol to protect its consumers while serving the freshest and safest goods.

By the time our teams were done with this after-hour tour, we were famish!  Knowing how safe the food is at Liberty Science Center and it fact that it was past dinner time, we all bought snacks, pizza and drinks to feed our hunger. Looks like this year’s FLL’s  “Food Factor” and Jr. FLL’s “Snack Attack” research will provide plenty of opportunities to sample/eat our research topics.

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