Kathleen Heffner with St. Louis daughter Celeste and famil
Wendell and Golda Sleeuwenhoek on a cozy date night
Last February, The Mayflower Community began building a cooking kitchen in its Health Center to be able to introduce “Open Dining” to its residents. Open Dining is the concept of providing restaurant-style menu-type ordering of meals at any time of the day, 7:00am to 7:00pm, for residents of the Mayflower community.
Open Dining began in the Mayflower Health Center after a complete remodeling of the kitchen, converting it from a serving to a cooking kitchen. Meals can now be prepared for orders taken in the dining room by Mayflower’s Food Service staff.
The kitchen infrastructure-electrical, water, heating/air conditioning, exhaust, drainage-was rebuilt and all new cooking equipment was installed.
The remodeling is complete. The kitchen is fully functioning. Now, residents in Mayflower’s Health Center are ordering breakfast, lunch, and supper during daylight times. At other times, there is a “grab n’ go” cooler from which they can get a variety of scratch-prepared salads, sandwiches, and fruits.
In the Health Center, breakfast is now available all day long. Regular breakfast is served from 7:00 to 10:00am. Then, the all-day menu is available from 10:00am to 7:00pm. Besides being able to eat what they want, when they want, some additional benefits have already surfaced for residents. The new schedule makes it easier for guests to schedule a meal with residents and some previously room-only diners have ventured out to the dining room. Residents can now more fully direct their daily routines. It’s working!
Mayflower’s Associate Director/Administrator, Kellie McGriff says, “The menus feature a wide variety of foods prepared fresh and to order, ending the regimented meal times and limited dining offerings. With Open Dining, we can partner with medical professionals to prescribe ‘real food first’ to address health and healing.”
The work to convert the Buckley building independent living kitchen to Open Dining has not begun, due to the crush of other projects currently in the works. That equipment upgrade and menu transition is expected by later in the summer.
Pictured above are Health Center residents ordering supper with Amber Speirs (left: Karen Stevenson, Joyce Hintermeister, Diana Long, Rudi and Phyllis Munitz).
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