05/07/2026
Hi everyone,
It’s been a bit since we had an informative post, and just overhearing a phone call Kelli took from a family, I felt the need to make one.
The just of the phone call was that “dad” sits at the table waiting for sometimes 2-1/2 hours for his lunch”.
Kelli was a bit taken aback for a moment, but then looked over at her monitor, and said “it’s 9:55am and he’s sitting there now”.
What’s happening…. We want residents to be in the dining rooms. We have activities and socialization there. Our goal is to have residents “hang out” and enjoy their time.
The problem is that our kitchen is effectively closed between meal times. They can and do whip up short order items for residents when asked between meal times, but if you come for lunch they aren’t considered open until 11:30. Sometimes our servers or care staff will take orders earlier to help speed things up, but the kitchen won’t start plating until meal time. You can’t count the hour and a half a resident chats before the kitchen opens as wait time for a meal.
With our system we can see each and every item a resident (or guest, or staff) ordered, and for this gentleman, his ticket time had never been over 25 minutes and averages 14 min.
Another factor is that there are usually more than 30 residents in the dining room the second the kitchen opens so it’s not dissimilar to a bus pulling up to Perkins. Our team does a great job at getting the food out. We just have to manage the expectation on timing.
The meal times are set to keep us in compliance with DOH rules, so we can’t change them too much without causing issues on that end.
Thanks, and have a great day!
Cory
