Food is the area of greatest enjoyment or greatest contention. Sometimes the smallest changes can swing the pendulum.
Almost six months to the day since she moved into your residence, Mrs. Allan shows up at your office door.
“I need to speak to you about an issue that I find gravely concerning,” says Mrs. Allan. With a sense of trepidation, you invite her to sit and mentally prepare yourself for the worst.
“When I moved in six months ago, I thought I’d found heaven on earth,” she begins. “The staff, the services, the beautiful building, the food—everything was amazing. However, I’m sure you’d want to know that, in the past few months, the quality of food and the dining room experience has gone distinctly downhill.”
Sound familiar? It’s a common perception among residents once they’ve lived in a retirement setting for a few months. At first, they’re thrilled with not having to cook meals, with the variety of food available and with the companionship of others at mealtime. As time marches on, however, they begin to find the meat tough, the soup salty and the vegetables overcooked. Hello, dining room fatigue.
Even on a six-week menu cycle, if each of us sat in the same chair, looking at the same view, having the same conversations with the same people and eating some of the same things week to week, we’d become dissatisfied too. And misery loves company. Dissatisfied people seem to have a pathological need to share their complaints—so food service concerns become not only an operational but a marketing problem as well.
Luckily, what’s good for resident satisfaction is good for marketing efforts. A successful food service model not only needs to encompass the basics of good-quality ingredients, talented staff, good menu planning and attractive presentation, but also has to analyze what people today want in their dining room. Your key message about food service, in both your marketing materials and sales presentation, must show how you meet these wants and how you differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Show that your food service is flexible
The key to demonstrating a superior food service model is to show flexibility. This might be demonstrated in many ways:
Use open seating rather than assigned seating. While it’s true that people are creatures of habit and will likely migrate to the same table for each meal, the idea of “assigned” seating smacks of institutionalization. Open seating implies you sit with whomever you wish at whatever table takes your fancy that day.
Provide flexible mealtimes. The ultimate is to have a dining room open from early morning to mid-evening. This may not be possible, but you should have significant windows of time for each meal. For example, breakfast might be from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., lunch from noon to 2 p.m., and dinner from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. If you cannot accommodate all residents in your dining room in one seating, try staggered seating times, opening up a new section in the dining room every 15 minutes and rotating tables as available. This is much more palatable than assigning someone a time of 5 p.m. and telling them that they must be finished by 5:30 p.m.
Offer the most number of meal options you can
While most residences offer two entrée options, they usually have a number of other menu items available if neither of the two features appeals to a resident. Post these on your menu where prospective residents can see them. As well, consider whether you can add a third option and perhaps a chef’s special. Are there other regular à la carte items you can throw in?
Don’t forget the drinks. Many seniors are wine drinkers, even wine connoisseurs. Have a wine list included on your menu. Perhaps feature a selected wine one evening each week to go with a particular meal. Consider offering a complimentary glass of wine with dinner each evening. Many residents won’t take you up on it, but it’s a very nice touch. Maybe even work with a winery to bottle a wine under your residence’s name. In addition, don’t just have water, milk and juice available. Have a selection of pop on your menu. Many seniors enjoy a frosty root beer or diet Coke. Offer different teas (a nice tea chest is a great talking point on a tour) and flavoured coffees—maybe even an alcoholic coffee occasionally. Don’t forget the pre-dinner cocktails. Anyone for martinis or margaritas?
Accommodate health-related diets. Most residences are able to accommodate low-salt and diabetic diets. Look beyond this to opportunities such as gluten-free or vegetarian. You may find a market niche. Always offer heart-healthy choices that are denoted as such.
Offer different meal plans. People get dining room fatigue when they use the dining room too frequently. As well, many relatively well residents may want to sleep in each morning or they may have plans during the day. For this very value-conscious generation, if they perceive they are paying for each meal, they will feel obliged not to waste it. Broaden your appeal by offering choices like a set number of meals (perhaps 10 to 30) per month, the option to opt out of breakfast and/or lunch, or a continental breakfast for late risers.
Schedule meals in different locations. Perhaps your dining room offers all three meals, but there’s a soup and salad bar offered in your bistro or a continental breakfast available in the library. As well, consider that some residents may want to prepare some of their own meals. Is it possible to offer an induction cooking service in the suites? If you have a kitchen for resident use, fully outfit it and encourage its use.
Mix it up! Schedule special evenings each month. Join with recreation to theme food around an event. Make use of your patio and have a barbecue. Have a buffet occasionally. Roast a pig for a luau, have a fondue party or bring in a guest chef to offer a sushi option.
Solicit feedback. It goes without saying that you should have a food service committee on which residents can participate, and comment cards so they can voice opinions on particular menu items. Take this further by having your food service manager host a “Captain’s Table” luncheon once a month, inviting four to six different residents to sit with him or her and discuss food issues. Always have the food service manager or chef tour the dining room as a meal is finishing in order to solicit feedback. Remember the old adage “A stitch in time saves nine”? It’s true in this circumstance. If a chef hears and addresses the complaint of a resident regarding salty soup, the resident is unlikely to become a chronic complainer about the sodium level in his soup at each meal. And it’s well known that food complaints diminish on sites where the residents know and relate to those people actually cooking the food. The general manager and department heads should also eat in the dining room regularly and perhaps assist in pouring coffee after a meal to chat with the residents. Lastly, the food service manager can hold cooking demonstrations of new menu items for residents. This is a great activity and gets buy-in for the new menu.
Other important elements that affect satisfaction with food service include the choice of staff with the right customer-service attitude, server training (and ongoing coaching), server uniforms (with name badges), comfortable tables and chairs (with arms and light enough to pull out and in to the table), table settings (like a nice restaurant not a nursing home) and a low noise level. Fresh flowers are a nice touch.
Promote your food service program
Once you’re confident your food service model is the best it can be, there are several ways to promote your program, both on tours and in the community:
- Post an attractive menu of the day outside the dining room. Have paper designed for this purpose or buy a patterned paper from your office goods supplier. Set up a template so that the typeface, size, etc. does not vary each day. Put the menu in a glass case or on a podium or post it on a bulletin board with a gold frame and lined with black velvet.
- Have menu holders on each table—just like a restaurant.
- Invite every tour for lunch or dinner.
- Give away complimentary meal certificates —but do so wisely. Do not put a “free meal” coupon in an ad. It devalues your food service. Don’t put your certificates in racks or use them as a direct mail piece. At the end of a tour or when meeting a new prospect who is promising, use some reverence when extending an invitation to come for a meal “as my guest.” Perhaps have your meal certificates individually numbered to enhance the perception of value.
- Include a recipe from one of your chefs in each of your newsletters.
- Profile your food service manager or chef in an ad.
- Offer a free meal certificate for two as a door prize to various charities.
- Bring “home-baked” goodies from your kitchen to key referral sources.
- Introduce your food service manager on every tour.
- Include a sample menu in your sales package.
- Follow up after tours with the gift of goodies from your kitchen.
- Hold food preparation demonstrations and invite the community.
- Distribute cookies or other goodies from your kitchen at trade, consumer or mall shows in which you are participating.
- Hold a fundraiser with guest chefs and your own creating amazing dishes for guests to sample.
- Produce a cookbook with recipes from the residence kitchen and from your own residents.
- Include some resident recipes on your menu.
- Plant an herb garden. Whether entirely accurate or not, this gives a great impression of “home-made” goodness.
- Develop a signature cocktail and signature dessert for the residence.
Food is likely the area of greatest enjoyment or greatest contention in your residence. Sometimes the smallest changes can swing the pendulum. Enhancing your food service is great for resident satisfaction. Marketing your food service can be equally great for occupancy.
About Heather Green
