Gail has been a food server in a senior living community for fifteen years. “Our community service team donned masks and closed communal dining early in this pandemic” she reported. “But we still lost some of our food serving team because they were afraid of taking...
A friend of a friend told me her 12-year-old daughter was creating greeting cards while being at home during the pandemic. She handed them into a local group who were passing them to a local organization. They were creating connections by sending cards, drawings, and...
When regulations introduced meal options for residents in senior living communities, it brought changes many thought were going to be costly and difficult to adapt. It has actually proved quite the opposite. Handwritten food orders that were often misread and produced...
The story came to me about a daughter's sadness who planned to have a big celebration for her mother’s turning 80 years old in the senior living community. How disappointing, even in the midst of all the coronavirus chaos going on, that her big party plans could not...
. There is no 'I' in team! Find ways to praise co-workers at every opportunity.
Get Ready! Get Set! Go! "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." UCLA coach John Wooden
It’s important to continue having celebrations in this time of extreme caution and stress. Have you ever been in a restaurant when the table or two over from you received a cake lit with candles and the wait staff singing Happy Birthday? Didn’t it make you and the...
It seems like Halloween, the food serving team is dressing up in weird costumes and carrying grandma’s dust cloth. Actually it’s the attire necessary for today’s responsibility for being on the job. Face masks, gloves, and cover-ups that the surgical team wore in the...
Already many stories have come out of our physical distancing for more than a month now. One I heard recently concerned a woman’s husband who was ill but not with the symptoms of the novel coronavirus. The husband didn’t have a cough at all, or fever, muscle pain,...
The story came to me recently about a conversation between a few friends. They were reminiscing on FaceTime about their earlier married years when they used to have themed parties on Saturday nights after settling the kids into bed for the babysitter. Now they were...
The food serving team in a community sets the ambiance for each mealtime and everyone agrees that mealtimes are the most important time of the day for residents. With today’s required physical distancing, food servers are often the one human, in-the-flesh-link to the...
Serving food has always been so much more than bringing food to the table. Every person who loves being in the kitchen or has restaurant life in their blood system knows that “Bad service can ruin a good meal yet good service can save a bad one.” Even your finest...
The story came to me about a woman lamenting the loss of her friend's meeting for meals at noon. It was her big social time of the day. Special. A reason to pouf her hair and add a pretty scarf around her neck. Now she was hovering in physical distancing. All meals...
A friend of a friend told me how upset he was because he couldn’t enter his mother’s assisted living community to visit her. “That’s why I moved to this area,” he said. “I visit her three times a week until today. The door was closed to me. I want to see how she is...
Kind Dining® has always stressed the importance of mealtimes in the community dining room. Now that residents have been restricted from coming into the dining room for meals it is more important than ever for food serving teams to take up the social aspect of...
The Coronavirus has changed the landscape of our lives in a matter of two weeks. A week ago I entered the hospital to visit my husband Mike after his elective back surgery. First, I was screened, temperature taken and a series of questions to answer. I was the only...
When a chef leaves his domain in the kitchen to enter the dining room to say, “Hello, I hope you enjoyed your meal today. I created the menu with you in my mind,” he touches everyone in the dining room creating a bond between himself and the seniors. Relationships...
A friend of a friend who is a food server in a senior living community in the East told me about Mary’s early experience moving into the community about five years after her husband passed away. She timidly stepped into a busy dining room for the first time, glanced...
It’s more than food servers being courteous to the seniors in your community dining room. It’s more than pulling out a chair or finding the best table for a particular senior to sit. It’s also about being civil, courteous to all your coworkers. It’s about lending a...
The niece of an acquaintance was telling her experience of being a guest and her first dinner with a friend in a senior retirement community recently. After stating how surprisingly wonderful the food was, she mentioned the service. The server was a young college...
You will find true leadership that shows a deep caring for your residents in different areas of your workplace. Someone from management that stands at the entrance to the dining room on Friday nights to greet seniors, often by name, shows a person bonded to her...
Keep in mind that if you have residents in your senior living community, you need a food serving team to serve them. While this sounds elementary, consider that you want skilled, knowledgeable, talented, considerate, food servers that exude a pleasant attitude. Do you...
An acquaintance recently told me about her teacher friend who was about to quit her position as a third-grade teacher. She could endure the ogre of a principal in the small school no longer. The woman caused friction between the other teachers and completely upset the...
Robert opened a bistro in a small town expecting people to flock in just because his place was new. Just in case that didn’t happen, he had a plan to use coupons, specials, and discounts to get people to try his menus. He knew once they came they would return. He was...
The beginning of a new year and a new decade is the perfect time to take stock and decide what new training needs to be considered to make your senior living community dining room better. Take note of where your food preparers and your food servers need new...
Welcome news is being spread around that culinary schools such as Johnson & Wales and the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) have redesigned the curriculum to focus on teaching cooking for the senior population. The baby boomers enjoy dining on sushi and drinking...
January is a great time to think about looking forward. Starting a new year gives many seniors the idea of starting over . . . by changing their lifestyle. They will be casting aside the dread of aging by embracing it as a time to bring the dreams of their youth to...
Starting a new year brings starting over to mind. There are a zillion stories out there about starting over. Surprisingly many are stories from people in their 40s leaving higher paying positions in what they consider toxic environments to find employment in a...
A friend mentioned that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas story has been accused of exposing the young stag to bullying. She claimed that his dad Donner, made fun of his red nose and shunned him. Furthermore the school coach said, “From now on, gang, we won’t...
A friend said the winter holiday season was a favorite of hers because it was the only time of year when extended family came to visit when she was a child. The adults gathered around the dining room table laden with all the holiday foods that were never seen during...
My friend’s brother returned home to the States after 50 years of living abroad. “Nearly all of those years were in Puerto Rico where he owned a very successful business. Now his health was failing and he yearned for the land of his youth. Our family was a...
Remember when you were a little kid going to school and the teacher responded to your raised hand when you knew the answer? A friend was telling me about her memory. “I was learning to read in first grade. I raised my hand to read a sentence and my teacher, Mrs. Smith...
My friend Alice told me about meeting with a long-time friend recently. Knowing my Kind Dining® beliefs and dedication to senior retirement communities, she thought of me as the conversation unfolded. “My girlfriend brought me up to date on the small hotel business...
