Sponsored By

Hospital café, healing garden provide solace for the mind and body

Mike Buzalka, Executive Features Editor

November 14, 2016

10 Slides
mindful cafe

When the Mindful Café opened last year to replace the outdated cafeteria at Sharp Coronado Hospital in San Diego, the healthcare facility suddenly had a dramatic new space to promote its wellness mission. Not only does the café adhere to the menu principles incorporated in dining services provider Sodexo Healthcare Services's Mindful wellness platform, but the eatery is also part of a larger space that includes an outdoor healing garden with "living garden" walls and a fountain.

The facility’s acute-care wing serves a daily in-patient census of around 25. It also has a long-term care section with 86 residents, all of them served by the Sodexo-managed hospital kitchen that adheres to Mindful principles in its menu. The retail café serves an average of 150 customers daily for breakfast and lunch. It generally closes around 6 p.m., but a micromarket extension provides round-the-clock food options for evening and overnight staff.

The facility’s garden hosts monthly pop-up Green Grocer farmers' markets where Executive Chef Kai Peyrefitte demonstrates healthy cooking tips and promotes the use of fresh, organic products, including probiotics like yogurts, pates and fermented foods as part of Sodexo's Nourish initiative, which emphasizes foods that strengthen the human body’s biochemical processes to promote health and healing. Some of these foods are also produced in the hospital kitchen using organic ingredients from the hospital's own garden and packaged for sale at the farmers’ market.

All photos courtesy of Sodexo Healthcare

Read more about:

Sodexo

About the Author

Mike Buzalka

Executive Features Editor, Food Management

Mike Buzalka is executive features editor for Food Management and contributing editor to Restaurant Hospitality, Supermarket News and Nation’s Restaurant News. On Food Management, Mike has lead responsibility for compiling the annual Top 50 Contract Management Companies as well as the K-12, College, Hospital and Senior Dining Power Players listings. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Literature from John Carroll University. Before joining Food Management in 1998, he served as for eight years as assistant editor and then editor of Foodservice Distributor magazine. Mike’s personal interests range from local sports such as the Cleveland Indians and Browns to classic and modern literature, history and politics.

Mike Buzalka’s areas of expertise include operations, innovation and technology topics in onsite foodservice industry markets like K-12 Schools, Higher Education, Healthcare and Business & Industry.

Mike Buzalka’s experience:

Executive Features Editor, Food Management magazine (2010-present)

Contributing Editor, Restaurant Hospitality, Supermarket News and Nation’s Restaurant News (2016-present)

Associate Editor, Food Management magazine (1998-2010)

Editor, Foodservice Distributor magazine (1997-1998)

Assistant Editor, Foodservice Distributor magazine (1989-1997)

 

Subscribe to FoodService Director Newsletters
Get the foodservice industry news and insights you need for success, right in your inbox.

You May Also Like