Blog
What Attracts Residents to Your Community?
My friend’s brother opened a small lunch only bistro in a small town back in the 90s. The ambiance was warmth with black and white tiled floor and checkered tablecloths. Toulouse Lautrec hung on the walls. His wait staff was welcoming in French apron over black pants...
Learning About Happiness in Your Community
Last week I ran into an old friend that I had not seen in a long time. After exchanging the polite pleasantries, we decided to have coffee and really catch up. Soon we fell into conversation about our work. She’s been a high school teacher and guidance counselor for...
Are Your Servers Learning What is Up-to-Date?
I read in a blog that Glassdoor named a Senior Living Community one of 50 Best Places to Work in 2017. It noted the passion of the employees who stated that they loved the residents and valued their wisdom. Here are three direct quotes from the employees: “I find joy...
Wanting to Work in Your Community
A friend told me about me her stay at Duke University Hospital during her scheduled heart surgery to replace a defective aortic heart valve. “I talked to everyone, the man who wheeled me down for an x-ray each day, the lady who cleaned my room, the nurses on the...
Does Your Dining Room Have Winning Teamwork?
The culture of hospitality is the key factor in senior care community and the dining room is the heart of that factor. It’s usually where strangers come to first meet their new lifetime neighbors, to dine, socialize, and generally get to know each other. It‘s also...
Do Your Employees Look Forward to Coming to Work?
A friend of mine told me that she put her house up for sale. She followed all the tips the Realtor® suggested about staging the interior of her home. When one couple came to look at the house, they struck up a conversation. “I noticed how clean all the streets in the...
What is Kind Dining®?
Every senior housing community, whether retirement or skilled healthcare, must provide the best dining experience it can offer. In order to reach that goal a new mindset and skill set ought to be put in place. It’s time for the organization to realize that residents...
Teamwork in the Dining Room
My friend, who comes from a restaurant family, told me how everyone in their restaurant worked as a team. When the dinner hour became truly busy, the wait staff took a moment to clean a table to help the busboy, the sommelier and the host-both in tuxedos-carried a...
Have your caregivers and ancillary staff embraced the changing roles of new responsibilities to work as a team with your serving staff?
Watching a well-trained professional team work through a busy mealtime is like watching a theatre production of a top rated director. It gives the viewer pure pleasure to see each person have a part to play and interact gleefully with everyone else. When your...
Do Your Community Marketers, Ancillary Staff and Dedicated Servers Know the Importance of Your Dining Room?
Every industry has its focal point, the most important center that every other part of the production surrounds. In community living that focal point is the dining room. In my first job in health care after years of experience in the restaurant industry, I learned...
Does Your Serving Staff Work as a Team ?
I took note when the “Greatest Coach of All-Time” UCLA coach John Wooden said, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." This brief statement overflowed into all areas of his long, successful life and it does the same for every area of your dining room. You want your...
The Importance of Your Dining Room
Arlene - the state surveyor - sat down to interview me, and it changed how I could make a real difference. I had spent the first two weeks on the job organizing the inter-workings and cleaning of the kitchen, reading the notes from the nurses on each resident’s...
Your Team of Servers Working Smoothly and Hassle-Free
A friend of mine told me that when he wanted to wait tables in a well-known, upscale restaurant, he first dined there, choosing the busiest time of the evening for his visit. He was interested in the quality and presentation of the food for the high price he was...
Your Dining Room and Resident Satisfaction
When a friend of mine was widowed all her friends gathered around her to give her comfort. They also agreed among themselves that she would be included in all their functions in the future so she would not feel left out, even though they were couples and she was not...
Does Your Dining Room Give Resident Satisfaction?
As a friend and I were reminiscing about our teen years, she mentioned the agony of walking into a school dance and not knowing what to do, where to go and hoping someone would come to her rescue. A single or widowed resident may feel that same agony when entering...
Does Your Community Dining Room Feel Like Home to Your Residents?
A Sense of Home When I was growing up I was encouraged to invite a special friend to join us at lunch or dinner. This was a bonding factor in our friendship. It told her, without words, that she was special and belonged in the nucleus of our family. It has long been...
Are Your Servers Just Acting Hospitable, or Do They Have a Genuine Attitude of Hospitality?
Hospitality Made Easy Hospitality is much easier than your servers may think. Starting the day with a positive attitude, knowing this will make life easier for others, and smoother for them, is a win-win situation. A smile is contagious even to people who think they...
Are Your Servers Full of Hospitality?
Hospitality Made Easy Growing up I was fortunate enough to interact with guests at our dinner table often. I learned naturally how to enjoy and extend hospitality. Later when I was a food service director I realized that others were not so lucky. I saw that my...
Are Your Servers Confident With Knowing Their Goal and Role?
Your Role in Hospitality Remember to let your staff carry the pride of their community while fulfilling their role when serving in the dining room. Their performance matters! A successful dining room is more than correctly placing plates in front of a resident....
Do Your Servers Know the Importance of Their Role!?
Importance of Knowing the Goal and Your Role Anyone that looks will notice a team that works smoothly together whether you attend a catered party or dine out in the new rave restaurant in the next town over. It’s the difference in an Olympic couple dancing on the ice...
Are Your Servers Practicing Their Skills Every Time They Serve?
Stop, Look & Listen; Where Can You Improve Service? When I was a child and trains carried the heavy load that tractor-trailers do now, there were a lot of railroad tracks to cross, enough to plant the phrase that I still carry in my mind. Today it makes me think...
From Hassle to Hospitality
The best experience you can give your residents is the employee who loves to come to work every day. This is the result of taking the hassle out of the hospitality you offer. Encourage all of your employees to become friendly with each other, to work as a team,...
Kind Holiday Dining
Now is a good time to pay attention to particulars that may arise with the holidays coming up on the horizon. Seniors often prefer inviting family and friends to the community instead of breaking their routines by going out. This proved to be true when an informal...
Holiday Truth
Kind Dining Six Truths are especially important during the end-of-the-year holidays beginning with Thanksgiving. Truth #3 teaches that residents will appreciate being served by positive thinking staff during this joyous season. This bringing warmth to the table® will...
Farm to Table Truth #4
Nutrition has always been a main concern in any community. Yet there is so much more to nutrition than vitamins and minerals. Kind Dining® training feeds the overall person, addressing the taste that goes into a resident, as well as what they see, hear, and feel. This...
Farm to Table Truth #2
New Regulations, Kind Dining Truths & More The stress on new regulations of participating in the Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) programs has arrived. While they extend for three phases, phase one’s spotlight, which began November 28, 2016 focuses on food,...
Farm to Table Truth #1
In our series: 6 Truths About Your Business You Can’t Ignore Fresh local food on your table is an old idea made new again! Forming a good relationship is healthy. Forming a healthy relationship with your local farmers is a great way to benefit both of you. The...
The #6 Truth That You Cannot Ignore!
Investing in Your Employees is the Most Effective Way to Accomplish Culture Change The company’s greatest asset is its people; people who are now facing change that is happening at the speed of light. Your employees need to thrive in this environment in order to meet...
The #5 Truth About Your Business That You Cannot Ignore!
Truth #5: You're Most Dependent on Your Lowest Paid, Least Trained Staff. Raising dining standards most effectively means training all your staff to shine in the dining room. It does not mean adding a faux palm tree in the corner of the room. Your servers and...
How Are You Putting Your Best Fork Forward This Month?
March is National Nutrition Month, when the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics reminds everyone to return to the basics of healthy eating. It is also the time of year when the Academy celebrates expertise of registered dietitian nutritionists as the food and nutrition...
The #4 Truth That You Cannot Ignore!
Truth #4 The Individual Resident of this Generation is Different The younger Boomers are filling our communities today. A new ‘help-yourself cart’ on the side of the dining room will not satisfy their desires. Their refined palates want the variety of culture found in...
The #3 Truth That You Cannot Ignore
Truth # 3 The Gap Between Expectation and Service. What makes my husband and I drive 1½ hours to dine at a particular restaurant when there are six good dining establishments within a mile of our home? Answer: the owners and staff will welcome us with sincere delight....
Share What Makes You Proud This Week!
The week of February 6 - 10, 2017 is almost here and that marks Pride in Foodservice Week. This recognition week applauds nutrition and foodservice professionals and other members of the nutrition services team for their hard work and dedication on the job. We’d love...
The #2 Truth That You Cannot Ignore!
Truth #2 Mealtimes are the Core of Your Community. Mealtimes are so much more than nourishing the body of each resident. It’s a time to form new, or replenish, the friendships they’ve made in the community and their acquaintance with your servers. Socializing is an...
6 Truths You Cannot Ignore!
Truth # 1 is a trumpet announcing that your dining room is the best marketing tool you have! It’s the authentic showcase to the public, the foundation of social life in your community. It’s where your residents will break bread with their family and friends during...
Since 1994, the organization has supported its clients by enhancing the dining experience and ensuring the nutritional care of residents.
Learn more at www.DiningRD.com