Dynamic dining

By Mike Mitchelson

Modern retirement communities use restaurant-quality foodservice to meet demands of the first wave of diverse baby boomers, and as an effective therapeutic tool for those needing memory care.

Institutional dining is a growing segment in the foodservice industry, and one of its fastest growing categories is retirement communities. Competition for the baby-boomer dollar is tightening, and that generation—with more disposable income than those previous—won’t settle for anything less than the comfort and convenience they earned and enjoyed in their working years. (And many Boomers, of course, will remain working in some capacity, by choice or necessity.)

As much as high-speed Internet and other media access is critical, dining options within these communities is also a key demand. Meal preparation and presentation are paramount to meet the demands of a well-traveled generation with broad taste profiles and high expectations. Further, the act of dining itself is recognized for its obvious social and therapeutic benefits, and attention is paid to deliver restaurant-quality service to enhance the experience. FSN presents two retirement communities that represent an increased focus on the dining experience as part of a well-rounded retirement lifestyle.


A very open kitchen

One can still detect the pleasant odor of a new home when one walks into Highview Hills by Walker in Lakeville, which opened last October. The “Walker” is Walker Methodist, a non-profit organization working with seniors since 1945. Highview, with 153 apartments, is plunked into a landscaped area including ponds, walking paths and a nine-hole putting green. Seventy-five apartments are designated independent living, 44 assisted living, 24 memory care, and 10 “care suites,” which are smaller apartments with a high staff-to-resident ratio for residents that have more demanding physical needs, explained David Smith, Highview’s housing director. Inside the multi-storied building is a bank, fitness center with a full-time coordinator, art studio, convenience store, bistro, spa, movie theater, library and internet café and game room. Currently, 44 apartments are rented, with a total of 55 residents.

Entering the Highview, it’s the similar feel of a lobby for a hotel or lodge. Warm earth tones shroud the walls, a silent, sheeting fountain and comfy-chaired lounge to the left, a concierge desk and waiting area to the right. Ahead is the common dining area—open, comfortable with a nice view of a central, landscaped common area, where grills capped with snow await their first use. There’s a brick shrouded fireplace to the right, and in the center a fully-equipped “exhibition kitchen,” behind a curving countertop lined with chairs.

Highview also has a full commercial kitchen, but the open demonstration area is the feature to educate, entertain and involve residents in the dining process. Residents can watch the chef prepare their meal, but they also can attend classes to expand their own skills.

The demonstration kitchen “is something in a senior community which is pretty unique,” Smith said. “When you take a look at how senior communities are being designed and built today versus even 20 years ago, the view is towards appealing to a more broad and diverse set of interests that people have coming in.”

Those diverse life experiences result in high expectations, Smith added, and invoked a fundamental attitude shift with regard to senior living facilities. “We don’t even use the term facility anymore. It’s where they live—it is a community. … It used to be that senior communities were developed more on a medical model than a residential model.”

The chairs at the exhibition kitchen counter are always filled when Molly Dollarhide, Highview’s executive chef, gives a Thursday lunch demonstration. (The day I visited, the meal prepared was Cabo crab cakes with mango black bean salsa and lemon zest aioli over grilled asparagus. It was delicious.)

Dollarhide also offers classes to residents; most still cook meals in their apartments. Classes range from the specific dish to a broad agenda such as taking the Cub Foods circular and planning out meals for the week and how to shop for the season. “And we develop the recipes for two, not four or six,” Dollarhide said. “They’re not cooking for their families anymore.”

The demonstrations at the kitchen really give the residents “something they connect with,” Dollarhide said. “And they have lots of knowledge to pass to me.”

That knowledge, Smith said, sometimes comes in the form of residents’ own recipes that are reworked for meals.

The demonstration kitchen is an effective—perhaps the most effective—tool to engage residents. “Food is the universal thing,” said Jeff Edberg, the corporate chef for Walker Methodist’s 10 retirement communities. “We all have to eat.”

And it fits in well with the food philosophy Edberg is instilling at all the Walker properties. Since he was hired, Edberg has emphasized “from scratch” cooking and purchasing locally when possible. It was just common sense. “We have people (here) that have traveled the world, and their expectations are high,” he said. “People understand fresh food and appreciate it.”

Edberg and Dollarhide have lengthy golf and country club experience (Edberg at Stonebrook Golf Club in Shakopee and Minnesota Valley Country Club, and Dollarhide at New Prague Golf Club) where demands were broad and expectations high.

It also provided them a more specific experience: Cooking for a residence is much different than cooking for a restaurant, Edberg and Dollarhide agreed. At a restaurant, one can cook the food they want, and if a patron doesn’t appreciate the style of food, that chef likely doesn’t have to see that diner again, Dollarhide said. “Here, I don’t get to see them off. I have to face them the next time. I have to apologize if they didn’t like it.”

Visit our Recipe Archive for Dollarhide's Cabo crab cakes with black bean mango salsa and citrus aioli recipe by clicking on the "Chef's Dish" link.


Wellness at Wellstead

Founded about ten years ago by Tom Wiskow, whose parents suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, Wellstead of Rogers assisted living and memory care center was designed to emphasize that it is, in fact, a residence with all the comforts and more of the conveniences independent living provided. As FSN covered in its November 2009 “Anniversary Issue,” the Wellstead’s assisted living and memory care communities are literally joined by The Crown Room banquet facility, which is open to the public. Wiskow recently sold the Wellstead to Five Star Quality Care, a company with more than 200 assisted living and memory care properties in the country. Five Star kept Wiskow’s vision, and added to it.

Unique to Wellstead (and other Five Star properties) is its Bridge to Rediscovery (BTR) program for residents, which encompasses every department at the facility, including activities, maintenance and foodservice. All Wellstead employees are encouraged to interact with residents—even ask if they would like to help out where appropriate—in an effort get them involved and feel valuable. A resident might, if they are interested and able, help with simple lawn maintenance tasks, folding linens or other activities while interacting with staff or other residents.

The BTR program in memory care includes researching a resident’s history, both personal and professional, to engage them and keep memory active, explained Raymond Helou, regional director of food and dining services. “The things that give pleasure (to you and I) are what we’ve done, who we are,” he said. For example, to engage a memory care patient who was a mechanic, a tool box would be prepared filled “with cues, such as a wrench or pliers–even a rag scented with oil—to trigger memories,” he said.

Foodservice is a vital part of BTR. “If you think that eating meals is about three-and-a-half hours, that’s a big portion of the day. … It’s a chance to engage family and friends,” Helou said.

Often the dining experience culls memories from residents suffering from Alzheimer’s, as can expertly-prepared meals and great service. “They’re in their comfort zone by doing something they recognize, which is thereby culling old memories,”—the part unaffected, at least initially—by the Alzheimer’s,” Helou said. Relying on those memories and functions, the resident is able to function, often as normal. “We want to jog memories, to bring memories forward.”

As part of the program, last fall the Wellstead shifted from paper placemats and napkins in the memory care residences to linen tablecloths and earthenware china, with colors similar to what many residents of a certain age used in their own homes. Color schemes are important—a meal served on a yellow plate, which is placed on a green tablecloth, “the food pops,” Helou said. “With dementia, the depth perception is not there. White on white (plates and tablecloths) don’t work.”

Food & Beverage Manager Sue Tackaberry, Certified Dietary Manager and Certified Food Protection Professional, heads up the foodservice for the memory care residence at Wellstead. (Executive Chef Eric Simpson handles meals for The Crown Room and the assisted living apartment complex.)

The memory care facility has about 90 residents, its nine wings dedicated to specific stages in the Alzheimer’s progression. Meals must meet very specific dining demands. Chewing and swallowing are often challenging for Alzheimer’s patients in advanced stages. Pureed and thickened liquid diets are not uncommon, as are diabetic considerations Tackaberry, said.

To fully take advantage of the therapeutic opportunity dining provides, meals are served family-style for those that are able—interaction requires decision making, which is good. Presentation is vital, Tackaberry said, right down to the garnish. “A resident might say they don’t like fish, but when they see the plate (attractively presented) they are curious to try,” she said.

On a recent visit, staff put the finishing touches on a meal in a staging kitchen adjacent to the dining area (the facility’s full-scale commercial kitchen is in the basement). Fresh salad was tossed, hot food set into serving bowls. Servers went table to table asking residents their preferences. For dessert, Wellstead’s pastry chef, Linda Ellis, plated individual servings that would fit in on any upscale restaurant table.

It’s a mistake that Alzheimer’s sufferers are often “prejudged as not able to differentiate between good (and bad) foodservice,” Helou said. Not only that, families who send their parents to reside at Wellstead “expect their loved ones to have that quality service and food,” he added.

“When a person sends their family member here, and they say, ‘My dad was aloof, not engaged,’ and you see the turnaround—” Helou shrugged, and looked around the dining room, the tables filled with residents eating a good meal, talking with each other. Enough said.