Kendal Overhauls Senior Living Dining Program With Renovations, New Concepts 

The Kendal Corporation is overhauling its culinary program across its portfolio of life plan communities to keep pace with the demands of baby boomer residents.

The Newark, Delaware-based operator’s transformation includes renovating existing dining spaces and adding in a new point-of-sale system to modernize its dining operations and upgrade dining to a more restaurant-quality experience, according to Kendal COO Doug Helman. Kendal communities overhauled kitchen and dining spaces, incorporating things like open-kitchen concepts and adding “action stations” allowing residents to interact with culinary staff as they prepare meals.

Residents are “ used to a certain quality of life and they’re used to a certain type of meal service,” Helman said.

Kendal’s dining overhaul is part of a broader industrywide shift seen in recent years as senior living providers aim to create more restaurant-style dining experiences for residents.

As part of its transformation, Kendal is growing staple produce items in community gardens, where possible.

These efforts were a “natural progression” for Kendal, with leadership realizing it was “time to bring ourselves up with the times,” according to Kendal Corp. Director of Culinary Christian Ramsey. Many of Kendal’s dining spaces were built in the 1990s and early 2000s, and these changes were needed to keep pace with the current state of senior living dining.

“A lot of our communities have said it was time to make these changes and that’s what we’re actively doing to answer that call from our residents,” Ramsey said. “This is what the consumer is expecting these days.”

For example, pizza ovens are a popular kitchen staple today, and provide opportunities for connecting residents and culinary staff, Ramsey said. This has helped bring friendly competition and camaraderie through finding the “best pizza recipe.”

Residents can, thanks to the renovations, watch chefs prepare meals on a flat top grill or cook a fresh omelet during brunch service. This addition has been a common theme across the Kendal system, Ramsey said. Having these open kitchen concepts helps improve the atmosphere of the culinary space, while bringing new experiences to residents like preparing meals tableside, he added.

One Kendal’s newest community, Enso Village in Healdsburg, California, grows produce for the kitchen and this effort will be expanded to other Kendal properties where possible. Sustainability is important to many Kendal residents, Ramsey said, and the “Kendal Dirty Dozen” effort aims to source the company’s 12 most-used produce and grain items from sources free of pesticides or herbicides.

Amid kitchen remodels, dining staff established temporary kitchens to ensure smooth operations during meal service while construction is underway.

“When you are doing these remodels, you are really building two kitchens,” Ramsey said. “We’re breaking it back to the studs, clearing the space and redesigning the entire space.”

The primary goal of the renovations is to “build restaurant quality kitchens,” to prepare and cook meals to meet resident demand. So far, resident feedback has been positive regarding the dining changes, Ramsey said.

The new kitchen spaces also allow for new experiences, like having barista-prepared coffee beverages or adding a salad bar to add variety in meal service, Ramsey said. Through the new point-of-sale system, residents can order online and schedule renovations like a typical restaurant, further modernizing the overall dining experience.

“That’s been a game-changer for residents, they can order food remotely, they can view menus, they can leave feedback,” Ramsey said. “We don’t have to wait until the end of the month to hear from our residents and it improves our communication.”

The post Kendal Overhauls Senior Living Dining Program With Renovations, New Concepts  appeared first on Senior Housing News.