IS SENIOR LIVING THE NEW BEST MEDICINE?
FOR SOCIAL DINING, NEW VARIETY IS THE SPICE
Friendships are often formed or furthered over a meal. So that makes senior living dining a twofer for boosting health: quality food plus quality socialization.
As traditional dining formats change and new venue options open everywhere, senior living is no exception. Cafés, pubs, bistros, and marketplaces are being designed, built, and added on to traditional restaurant- style dining rooms. Senior living is even getting in on the food truck trend. And designers and dining experts are aware of the value of keeping dining social.
“The idea with these varied outlets is that it increases interaction between residents you might not normally see or visit with,” says Aaron Fish, vice president of food and beverage at Civitas. “You might run into someone in the café and have a danish. It increases the chance encounters.”
“Your meal plan really drives socialization,” says Schelley Hollyday, principal at the Hollyday Group, which consults on hospitality in senior living. With more variety in venues and fl exible meal plans, “it spreads the opportunities to socialize through the whole day.”
The two presented at the 2019 Argentum Senior Living Executive Conference with a talk on “Operating with a Restaurant Mentality,” where they shared new senior living dining trends and attitudes.
In the past, the residence mailboxes often served as this nexus for casual socializing; some residences even tweaked design to take advantage of this, Hollyday says. But mail is lessening in importance, and dining venues off er more opportunities. The two most popular and common additions in senior living are pubs and cafés—both venues informal and conducive to dropping in for a chat.
It starts at breakfast, Hollyday explains, at the café. She notices that groups of men friends often get together for coff ee every day, as do early-morning walkers and tennis players. At lunch, residents may host friends or families or have a group meeting. The pubs are popular for a drink with adult children or a meet-up with other residents before dinner.
Diff erent venues have diff erent “cultures” and behavioral expectations, Hollyday points out. In the formal dining rooms at a residence, cell phones and table hopping may be frowned upon, but a café may have charging stations for devices.
The options result in a vibrant traffi c and social fl ow. But residents value the formal restaurant space for dinner.
“Dinner is still number one,” says Hollyday. “It’s the critical socialization point of the day.”
While it’s typically two or four to a table inside the restaurant, it’s just outside where the social action happens. People wait for friends and wait to be taken to their tables, and the conversations buzz. “It’s very important, as communities are looking at any potential design changes, that there's a gathering place for people before dinner,” Hollyday says.
Apart from the big three—restaurants, cafés, and pubs— senior living dining experts point to a few other trends on the rise—and all weave in opportunities to socialize:
• The marketplace concept: Similar to familiar fast- casual venues, food may be in display cases and prepared on the spot, often with a self-service element; allows for more spontaneity in dining.
• Outdoor dining: Going beyond a few tables outside, this concept often includes an outdoor kitchen or grill. Fish points out that the combination of pool and grill is a socialization magnet, especially for including family. But these need to be designed with good coverage and features to keep food and residents safe.
• Catered events: Holding catered events in community spaces can bring in families, friends, and visitors from the surrounding community—ideally, increasing social interaction, busting myths, and raising revenue all at once.
And then there’s the food truck at Fleet Landing in Jacksonville, Fla., just going into service at publication time. The plan is to park it in the community so residents can get a casual meal, but it will also go out to nearby areas to raise awareness (and revenue).
The food truck at Fleet Landing, a CCRC in Jacksonville, Fla., is designed not only to deliver casual, high-quality food in a fun way, but to be a brand envoy for the
community.reported that moving to a Life Plan Community.
“The more awareness of what our communities are like, the better the understanding is that dining here is more like home life or resort life,” Fish says. “And the more interaction we can get, the better. Food is a super-easy way to do that.”
10 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE MAY/JUNE 2019
Photo courtesy Fleet Landing; truck design by SCOPOS Hospitality Group.
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