Waterleaf renamed: Now it's 'Breuder's Banquet'

OK, the College of DuPage's money losing gourmet restaurant Waterleaf (a half million big ones in 2012) hasn't been renamed Breuder's Banquet yet, but it should be.

COD President Robert Breuder deserves kudos (or maybe it's a pink slip) for trying mightily to keep Waterleaf afloat (pun intended) by lavishing Waterleaf's fine food and fine liquor on his administrators, his bosses (the COD trustees), and himself. In a five day pe...riod last December alone, Breuder spent $9,255 on Christmas lunches, dinners and parties for his management team and Board of Trustees. He also spent $10,466 on nine other Board of Trustees dinners and he personally benefited by reimbursement $10,864 for "meals and alcohol," and racked up $1,429 for 14 nights at the upscale campus hotel he got the Board to approve constructing.

When Breuder takes the Board and his team out for eats at Waterleaf, it's truly a banquet: crab cakes, Carpaccio, duck, salmon, Bavarian cake, filet mignon, toffee pudding sorbets, bread pudding, potato puree, chicken mousse, halibut, steak salad and much more. I've gained weight just listing all those yummies.

We don't know if 2013 will see Breuder's Banquet; oops, Waterleaf, show another half million dollar loss as it did in 2012. But if it does, at least President Breuder can say, "I tried."