Theresa Kevak, manager of foodservice at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes Barre, Pa., was forced to keep serving customers during a quick renovation. Here, she shares ideas for keeping things running smoothly while a renovation is in progress.
When Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes Barre, Pa., underwent a five-day cafeteria renovation in November, Manager of Foodservice Theresa Kevak was challenged to find a way to continue serving patrons during construction. Her advice: Do a dry run and plan ahead.
“The biggest thing in pulling this off was planning ahead. We did a dry run before opening up for customers. This was important because of electrical issues; we had to look where we could plug everything in, so we knew where everything was going to be located. And because the weekend is slower, we plugged in the equipment and did the dry run and actually started serving that Friday evening.
We used some of the equipment we were no longer going to use after the renovations to serve food in the seating area. We used a turntable for desserts and the old salad bar to put out pre-made hoagies and wraps.
The kitchen is located right behind the cafeteria so it was easy to keep these things stocked. We brought our normal staff in, plus one person as a runner. We utilized some tables to set up the soups and we served two hot entrees. We used chafing dishes and set up everything like a big buffet and had the silverware and napkins flow into the register.”