Bon appetit!

A semester long project for eighth grade students at the Academy of Innovation came to an end Friday as one student group was named winner of the Restaurant Wars.

Floor plans, menus, restaurant themes and names were created by the student groups in both Paige Morgan and Brad Pope’s keystone classes, a class focused on the 16 career clusters.

The Restaurant War’s idea came from Pope as a way to cover different units while encompassed under one major project. The project was integrated into each career cluster the students studied, and students learned the different aspects of creating their own business.

“When we did construction, the kids had to build a floor plan. When we did agriculture, the kids had to build a menu. When we did finance and business administration, the kids had to build a budget for their restaurant. So with every piece, they designed all of it,” Morgan said.

Each group’s restaurant was put to the test.

The semifinals were held earlier at the school, where the original 48 groups were narrowed down to 12 through teacher votes. The finals were held Friday night in the Joe Loviza Building at the Hinds Community College Vicksburg campus.

Local restaurant owners, school district central office employees and the dean of Hinds were just some of the people invited to judge in the finals and name a winner.

“The students (discussed) what they had to do to build it, how they came up with their ideas,” Morgan said of the finals competition.

The groups also came up with a mission statement and put all of their restaurant information on a trifold board for present to the judges. The top team came from Pope’s class and was composed of Sarah Jabour, Michael Dejesus, Kayleigh Beard and Madison Banks.

Morgan said AOI is a project-based school.