The Pioneer Tasting Tours continued with a second stop in Columbus, Ohio, where our teams from Cedarville University and Mount Vernon Nazarene University headed to North Market in search of new flavors, fresh ideas, and concepts that could make the jump from a local food destination to campus dining.
And on a hot, sticky Columbus day, some of the simplest ideas made the biggest impression.
A Refreshing Idea Worth Bringing Back
One standout was a fresh ginger and basil lemonade, a combination that was especially memorable in the summer heat.
Beyond being refreshing in the moment, the drink sparked an idea with plenty of potential for our campuses. Specialty lemonades could become an easy seasonal addition, particularly during those unexpectedly warm days that often stretch well into September.
More importantly, it’s a concept that can adapt to different dining operations. Campuses with beverage bubblers could feature rotating specialty lemonades, while others could prepare drinks to order using a setup similar to a dirty soda station.
It’s exactly the kind of inspiration the Tasting Tours are meant to uncover: something discovered on the road that can be reimagined in a practical, student-friendly way.
From Individual Bites to Campus-Sized Ideas
The Columbus stop also challenged our team to think about scale.
Crepes provided inspiration beyond simply recreating an individual serving. What if the flavors and experience of a crepe could be translated into a batch recipe designed to serve an entire dining hall?
That thinking helped inspire a crepe cake concept, taking something traditionally made one at a time and finding a way to make it work for campus foodservice.
A steamed dumpling lasagna sparked a similar conversation. While the concept itself isn’t entirely new, the opportunity is in developing a bulk recipe specifically designed for Pioneer dining halls. Instead of simply bringing back something we tasted, the goal becomes figuring out how to make the inspiration operational.
Inspiration Is Only the Beginning
That may have been the biggest takeaway from Columbus.
A tasting tour isn’t about finding a dish and copying it. It’s about noticing the flavor, ingredient, presentation, or experience that makes something memorable and then asking, “How could this work for our students?”
Sometimes the answer is a fresh ginger and basil lemonade. Sometimes it means turning individual crepes into a shareable, scalable creation. And sometimes an existing food trend becomes the starting point for a recipe built specifically for campus dining.
With Columbus behind us, those ideas are now moving from inspiration to experimentation as our culinary teams begin developing and refining recipes that can work across Pioneer campuses.
