When 59-bed Castle Rock Adventist Hospital, in Colorado, opened this month, one of its hallmarks was the 90-seat Manna restaurant, the employee/visitor dining room that Nutrition Manager Dan Skay hopes will become a destination restaurant for the community.
“Manna is a upscale, full-service restaurant with an open kitchen and a menu that reflects Colorado’s growing season and the local products we have available to us,” says Skay, who also is executive chef for the Adventist hospitals in Castle Rock and Parker, Colo. “We also have a convenience store, called Manna Market, and our room service program, which is tied to the restaurant, is called Bedside Manna.”
The hospital, which Skay says will eventually grow to 110 beds, also has a garden that will supply the hospital with herbs and vegetables, including heirloom tomatoes, kale and garlic scapes, the immature flower of the garlic plant. There also will be a community garden with 90 raised beds that will be available for rent to local residents.
Menu items served include a seared barramundi with crispy corn risotto, Chimayo chile sauce and grilled spring onions; a Thai coconut udon noodle dish made with Indonesian soy, baby bok choy and shiitake mushrooms; and a summer salad made with organic arugula, watermelon, golden beets, goat cheese, crisp jicama and pistachios.
In planning the foodservice for the new hospital, Skay was able to conserve on space and FTEs by combining restaurant and patient meal production. “Typically you have your patient foodservice and retail foodservice separated,” Skay notes. “As I was thinking about our room service I thought about my time in hotel dining, where the restaurants and room service worked off the same line. So that’s what we’ve done here.” Cooks work together at a Montague island suite, he explains, where they can help each other produce meals more quickly.