Amended policy announced in June requires visitors to remain at patient bedsides throughout their visits in most circumstances, limiting retail dining opportunities. For retail dining, Weill Cornell has the Garden Café that operates between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekends.

Jackson Memorial revised its visitation guidelines in mid-July, barring most inpatients from receiving visitors while outpatients can have one healthy guest who needs to stay in the waiting room or lobby unless needed by the patient. Visitation continues to be permitted in the long-term care facilities, subject to state and AHCA requirements. Some exceptions are made for patients with physical, intellectual, developmental disabilities and/or cognitive impairments, labor and delivery patients, pediatric patients and end-of-life situations. For staff and visitors allowed on the premises, the hospital cafeteria serves separate breakfast (fresh pastries, bagels, fresh fruit, eggs, bacon, sausage, hot cereal, pancakes, French toast), lunch (fresh sushi, wraps, deli sandwiches, salad bar/fresh-made soup, grilled burgers, fries, innovation station, hot line-entrées and sides and desserts) and dinner (featured hot entrées and sides) menus in meal daypart blocks between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. There is also a Cuban-themed coffee shop that operates 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays serving Cuban pastries, croissants, Cuban toast, hot breakfast sandwiches and specialty coffee drinks like Café con Leche, espresso, colada and cortadito.

As a whole, the San Antonio Methodist system did not close any retail venues, though it did remove salad bars and all other self-serve areas.  It has gradually opened up self-serve in its physician lounges with numerous safety measures and provided one-time use gloves, additional hand sanitizer and extra serving utensils. It also changes out the utensils and sanitizes the servery every 30 minutes. Sodexo has also added new plasticware dispensers to its cafes that are safe to use in the current environment in addition to automated condiment dispensers, which incorporate a motion sensor so there is no lever to touch while reducing the restocking of PC’s.   

Sodexo also created food lockers for the hospital to collect snacks for the teams taking care of COVID patients. With this system, administrators are able to get fresh fruit, granola bars and other shelf stable items for their teams as they don’t always get a chance to get away for breaks.

Sodexo also adapted the patient meal system since the COVID crisis began. Although it has room service, it delivers the floors in zones. The patients have a timeline for ordering and if they miss the deadline, they are called for their orders. The meals are then delivered to the entire floor at one time. This approach has been met with a lot of positive responses from the nurses as they can now schedule around their patients’ meals and work in their own lunch break. It also helps with medication.

Sodexo also added patient advocates at some of the toughest hit locations, with the team staying on the patient floors meeting with patients. They carry tablets and can make changes to patient meal orders or even take orders. They’ve created great relationships with nurses and help solve a lot of problems. And with limited visitors—and sometimes no visitors—it has made a huge impact on patients in that even COVID patients get to choose their meals.

NYU Langone screens all visitors and support people accompanying patients at all of its inpatient locations for COVID-19 symptoms and has their temperature checked when they arrive. All visitors must wear a mask in areas where required, must wash or sanitize hands frequently, and must stay with the patient at all times unless directed otherwise by staff. Dining options at Tisch Hospital include the Tisch Café, open between 6 a.m. and midnight daily and offering dishes inspired by the New York City dining scene such as the market table, which features a rotating soup of the day, carving board and a selection of side dishes at lunch and dinner along with a pasta station, salad bar, brick oven pizza and paninis. Soup, sushi, and made-to-order sandwiches are also available. Tisch also offers the Argo Tea-osk with its menu of teas, coffees, juices, sodas and other beverages, and selected snacks. NYU Langone’s Kimmel Pavilion has a coffee bar with specialty coffee and tea, smoothies, pastries and grab-and-go snacks, and the Kimmel Café, serving breakfast and lunch fare such as acai and yogurt bowls, oatmeal, fresh fruit, soups, salads and grain bowls. It also offers self-serve kiosks where customers can order and pay for their selections.

In July, Orlando Regional announced new visitor policies that allow patients without a positive COVID test to have two visitors daily during visiting hours while one visitor is allowed each day for each patient in all emergency departments and surgery/procedural areas. For retail dining, the Winnie Palmer cafeteria is open 24/7 offering wraps, grill items, smoothies, prepackaged options and a self-service deli/salad/dessert bar. There is also the Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital Cafeteria that operates weekdays between 6:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. and the Miller Street Café near the emergency department that has Starbucks branded coffee, an assortment of hot teas, specialty drinks, juice, water as well as foods like fresh bagels, pastries, sandwiches, fruit and yogurt parfaits.

Retail dining spaces at Yale New Haven have opened but not expanded. Morrison has increased its individually wrapped items aside from the grab-and-go items and now offers individually wrapped pizza slices, fries, tenders, burgers and hot dogs that have been a big hit with customers. It also converted the salad bar to a one-sided option where a staff member serves the items the customers select, and has deployed a Sally the Robot machine that builds custom salads. The coffee station has been converted to a “touchless coffee urn” that allows customers to purchase and pour their own coffee without having to touch an urn handle. In addition, the coffee station has an abundance of individually wrapped creamers and stirrers to make customers more comfortable.

The Dining on Call (room service) menu is currently being extended to patients who have been admitted to the hospital but have not yet been assigned a patient room. Once these patients have a diet logged into the system, they will be able to call for their personalized—not cold-boxed—meal as if they were a regularly admitted patient with a room, a great amenity given that there can be a long wait—up to eight hours—before a patient gets transferred to a room.

On Aug. 14, the Baptist Health System announced new guidelines that limit patients to one visitor, who must remain in the patient room. The cafeteria continues to serve staff.

The Montefiore Moses Campus offers a Food Pavilion, a coffee shop just inside the East 210th Street entrance, a coffee kiosk in the lower level of its children's hospital and a seasonal garden café located off the northwest lobby.

During the height of the pandemic, Norton Hospital leadership provided a free meal to every employee each day they worked, under which policy Morrison was serving 3,500+ meals per day while effectively practicing social distancing. Although a challenge, the company was able to provide quality meals and customer service to all frontline staff.

Although it streamlined its services and menus, Morrison did not strictly limit its offerings while taking measures to continue to increase selections. It kept all stations open during this process and eliminated all self-service. One of the most popular items in the retail area is the pizza station, and due to increased volumes, Morrison added another pizza oven and can now serve 150-180 individual pizzas during the peak lunch period.

Through the pandemic, the management company has actively engaged in numerous menu changes and enhancements to drive revenue with less customer traffic due to continued visitor restrictions. They include the Morrison Healthcare Micro Concepts and Pop-Up Brands K Steak, Melt, Broth and Bowl, Buddha Bowl, Butcher’s Block, On the Vine, Basmati and Spice, Carrots and Greens, Toasty, Cauli Club, Nice Thai, Fish and Chippie. Morrison also partnered with the hospital’s wellness initiative, N Good Health, to feature plant-based proteins, “Eat Well Wednesday”, and the Mediterranean diet.

Among initiatives recently introduced at Norton Hospital to meet the challenges of the new operating environment are the InstaEat desktop and mobile ordering platform and the additions of a Sabra Countertop refrigerator and the Cold Brew product and Serenade machines from Starbucks. A Shelf engine for grab-and-go items was also piloted.

The Presbyterian Hospital Cafeteria has opened the Pittsburgh Deli, a UPMC branded retail concept, while Shadyside Hospital Cafeteria has opened Bright Bowls, another UPMC branded retail concept. In addition, the Montefiore Hospital Brick Side Eatery is now offering online ordering and pickup while part of the UPMC Presbyterian and Shadyside Catering Department has been transitioned to a centralized production model that produces for all UPMC Presbyterian and Shadyside retail outlets with the new fresh grab and go The Market at UPMC concept. There are also new c-stores recently opened for after-hours staff at Presbyterian and Montefiore. The current method of providing patient dining is full room service using a call center at  Montefiore Hospital and bedside ordering with smart tablets at Presbyterian and Shadyside Hospitals.

Memorial Hermann reopened the professional building express café late last year with a menu that offers breakfast tacos and sandwiches in the morning and a lunch deli selection of specialty sandwiches between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. weekdays, plus a grab and go menu of packaged salads, sandwiches, snacks and beverages. Morrison is in the process of reintroducing micro-markets after rolling out a pop-up market during the start of the pandemic that offered staples like milk, bread, eggs, fruits/vegetables and toilet paper. For Nurses Week, the company hosted afternoon tea with finger sandwiches, mini scones, tea cakes and specialty teas from the British Isles. Patient foodservice is through a room service model.

Recently announced changes in visitor policy by Long Island Jewish parent Northwell Health states that visitors will not be allowed to wait in the cafeteria or in any lobby areas, except possibly when someone is accompanying a patient for a same-day procedure and the lobby is the designated waiting area. Hence, retail dining is limited mostly to onsite staff and includes the New Horizons Café in the campus’ Cohen Children’s Medical Center and an Au Bon Pain unit in the main hospital lobby. Weekdays, New Horizon operates over four serving periods—breakfast (7 a.m.-10:30 a.m.), lunch/dinner (11 a.m.-8 p.m.), late night (10 p.m.-2 a.m.) and overnight (3 a.m.-5 a.m.)—and from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekends. In addition, a Bikur cholim room is available for kosher food storage and emergency meals near New Horizons Café.

For an extended look at recent initiatives at Spectrum, go here.

Retail dining spaces at Methodist University Hospital are getting back to normal, with three existing points of service currently open. Morrison is also re-opening stations that were closed to the pandemic and while the self-serve salad bar is currently still closed, it does offer a made-to-order salad station. The hospital has had self-check-out kiosks for two years now and customers, especially hospital associates, love the speed of transactions this offers. They are cashless and can accept credit/debit, gift cards and meal plan account payments.

All retail venues at Barnes Jewish Hospital have reopened and are operating at pre-COVID hours of operation. While Morrison has eliminated all the self-serve stations, it is now crafting individual salads for customers daily from options that include four to five different proteins, three different kinds of cheese, and over 20 other ingredients. Additional snack type items were introduced in retail areas during COVID while some venues were closed, ensuring customers had an increased selection

The hospital’s smallest café closes at 8 p.m. but a Sally the Robot and a BYTE Cooler—both fortuitously installed about three months before COVID hit—are provided after hours for meals for patients, visitors and staff. Notably, when café operating hours were temporarily reduced in May 2020, sales doubled in both areas until hours of operation returned to normal. Meanwhile, the third shift meal in the larger café transitioned from Morrison Healthcare’s Entrée Reimagined platform to a cook-to-order exhibition station every night, an approach that has been continued as it has ensured that staff receives freshly prepared meals while waste is reduced.

During the day, retail options include a full-service grill, an exhibition station with made-to-order dishes that each week features a theme such as Asian, Mediterranean, and Southwestern and either Entrée Reimagined or a micro brand daily. Mornings bring a full-service breakfast with a breakfast “buffet” with the grill areas preparing omelets, pancakes and breakfast sandwiches to order. In addition, extensive grab-and-go offerings are available for all three shifts

During the peak of COVID, the smaller café greatly modified hours of operation and for several weeks, Morrison utilized a Mobile Marketing cart for employees in the towers affected by this change, with payment accepted on an iPad. It also offered a large micro-market during the peak of COVID in the spring of 2020, something now downsized to a smaller version, as there continues to be a need for employees to conveniently get staples like loaves of bread, half gallons of milk and bulk snack items.

Meanwhile, with staff running hundreds of COVID tests per day and often too busy to leave and walk across campus to a building with a café, the catering department initiated a meal delivery service that continues for the occupants in the building. That department also established a lunch/snack delivery service to the vaccine and COVID infusion centers located on a remote part of the campus footprint about a half mile away.

For patient feeding, Morrison operates a room service program for two-bed towers and bedside ordering for three-bed towers.

This past January, Mayo Clinic introduced Healthy You, a retail dining platform with a focus on providing enticing, better-for-you meal options. Mayo Clinic Teaching Kitchen videos, educational marketing, a plant-based menu concept called Garden Made that was designed by Mayo Clinic executive chefs, and sustainable procurement and packaging enhance the dining experience at Mayo Clinic Hospital-Rochester, Saint Marys campus.

Additional stations within the café provide customizable, made fresh from scratch sushi, salad, wrap, sandwich and frozen yogurt options, and offer plenty of high-quality choices for guests. Other outlets throughout the campus serve specialty coffee, fresh-made grab-and-go options, and additional nourishment to staff and visitors.

The patient dining program consists of a room service model with 23 menus in seven languages and the tracking of 300 food allergens within the patient dining database, which captures over 99% of patient food allergen risks. Celiac and other gluten-allergic patients can order gluten-free meals prepared from scratch by certified chefs in the Mayo Clinic certified gluten-free kitchen, which it says is the only certified gluten-free kitchen owned and managed by a hospital system in the country.

In all, Mayo Clinic Food Services currently feeds around 2,800 staff and patients per day from its five retail outlets and the patient dining programs located within the six patient care buildings on the Mayo Clinic Hospital-Rochester, Saint Marys campus.

All but one retail venue at Cleveland Clinic is reopened and the hospital is realizing about 60-70% of retail sales compared to pre-COVID levels. Morrison anticipates that the last retail venue will probably reopen in early fall as sales volume continues to increase and the traffic through the cafés makes it necessary to open additional space to be able to maintain appropriate distancing between customers. Recently, chairs and tables have been added back into seating areas, while a focus remains on adequate spacing and appropriate cleaning/sanitation practices.

Prior to COVID-19, one café had five stations open—grill, deli, sushi, vegan build-your-own bowl, and local pizza—but when the pandemic hit, two were closed and services reduced at the others stations due to reduced number of customers, the need for social distancing and the prohibition on in-café seating.

As the pandemic-induced restrictions changed and more visitors and staff returned to the hospital and outpatient clinics, Morrison conducted a “Voice of the Customer” Survey to determine if it should change the offerings at the stations compared to pre-pandemic offerings. Based on survey results, the station that is the most visible at the front of the café was changed to a Morrison Healthcare branded concept called The Taco Shoppe, which has been very successful based on customer feedback and sales. The second (and final) station that will be re-opened in early fall based on survey results will be another Morrison Healthcare branded concept called the Restaurant Collection.

Prior to the pandemic, Morrison was in the process of implementing its InstaEat mobile and web-based ordering and pay platform. Due to the pandemic, the implementation timeline was accelerated, and deployment expanded to more of cafés. Now, even guests and caregivers can order through InstaEat from International Café, which is the site’s largest café, and have it delivered to select outlying locations to decrease time for them and increase availability of favorite food options.

Morrison and Cleveland Clinic also provided food to COVID-19 testing locations affiliated with the hospital when those sites were active.

In the patient dining area, Morrison offers both room service and bedside, depending on the patient population primarily served on each floor, with most patients served using a room service model. The services are customized based on conversations with physicians, nursing/nursing administration, patient representatives, patient feedback, Press Ganey survey results, clinical dietitians, hospital administration and others.

IU Health has offered more limited dining services throughout the pandemic, but never had to close. It implemented self-checkout kiosk and brought in guest restaurants to help with the stations that we closed but otherwise did not open any new food locations. On the patient dining end, IU Health continues to offer full room service.

Carolinas Medical Center has reopened all of its retail stations, some like the salad bar with attendants because clearance hasn’t been given so far to reopen them all the way. During the height of COVID, Morrison had reduced many stations due to there being far fewer people in the hospital, but also got creative and met caregivers where its services were most needed. One example: the Morrison Market that let staff purchase grocery items in the café at a time when it was difficult for many to get to the grocery store. 

Morrison also increased its grab-and-go offerings, adding more sandwiches, desserts, salads and even sushi, which is prepared fresh onsite by an outside vendor and has been wildly successful, creating a great buzz with the staff at the Atrium location.

Other recent initiatives included adding the Purely Good meal platform, which offers an entrée, sides and dessert for four people for $15 that is available by pre-order or pick up in the café, as well as individual take-home meals such as pizza, quiches, rotisserie chicken, braised beef and BBQ offered in the cafe for prices ranging from $7.99 to $15.00 per meal.

In the Xray café, a call ahead ordering and delivery service for the staff on the units was launched. Morrison also offered a cart that took around snacks and beverages to the different units of the hospital at one point, though it eventually found that most staff wanted to come to the café to get off the units and get a break, so the goal now is to create a space where caregivers can come and unwind, relax and re-energize so they could go back and continue providing care to the patients.

That unwind/relax/re-energize mission was abetted by a series of engagement activities such as ice cream floats, candy days, cookie trays and donut days. In addition, the chefs prepared food for the ED staff multiple times and the PEM teams did special engagement items with the nursing staff. 

Patient meals at Carolinas Medical Center and Levine Children’s Hospital are offered through a combination of room service and bedside service options. 

UAB Medicine is allowing visitors into dining and common areas as long as they wear masks and follow procedures like social distancing guidelines. For patient meals, UAB Hospital offers inpatients hotel-style room service while visitor dining is available in several different venues, including a food court and a Starbucks unit on the second floor of the North Pavilion, and GG's Starbuck's Coffee Cart on the first floor of the West Pavilion and on the third floor of UAB Hospital Highlands. There are also food trucks outside the North Pavilion Lobby of the main hospital.

In December, LVHN Cedar Crest opened a new emergency department that includes a bistro serving staff, hospital visitors and patients. Over the summer, the LVHN team implemented InstaEat desktop and mobile ordering at the Muhlenberg and Hecktown Oaks locations and

is working with the retail team to implement Scan-and-Go at Muhlenberg. For patients, dining currently operates a hybrid model that includes bedside ordering and room service.

Per its updated visitor guidelines dated July 1, Christiana is allowing approved visitors into common areas such as dining spaces, though they must be masked and practice other safety protocols such as hand hygiene and social distancing. The main hospital offers the West End Café, a full-service cafeteria offers four daily meal period menus—breakfast between 6:30 a.m. and 10 a.m., lunch between 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., dinner between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. and late-night between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. There is also an Au Bon Pain unit in the main lobby offering the chain’s selection of sandwiches, soups and snacks weekdays between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. and weekends between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. Brew HaHa! units serving coffee, sandwiches, soups, pastries and snacks are located in the main lobby and in the Ammon Medical Education Center.

Wilmington Hospital has the Overlook Café full-service cafeteria serving breakfast (6:30–9 a.m.), lunch (11 a.m.-3 p.m.) and dinner (5-6:30 p.m.) weekdays, plus an Au Bon Pain unit.

A self-service meal order app was implemented in September 2020 that lets patients order from their personal smart devices. They can browse the menu, make their selections, and schedule the meal delivery time. Otherwise, the patient dining program offers room service with standard choices and some made-to-order options, bedside meal entry and the patient mobile ordering app.

A renovation in The Market Place and Texas Sky Market micro-market added Mashgin self-checkout stations designed to significantly shorten wait times, resulting in very positive feedback from guests about the improved efficiency. To check out at one of these stations, customers place their selections on the Mashgin table, add their employee discount by scanning their badge and pay by using debit, credit or smart pay at the checkout. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the Mashgin cameras are able in less than one second to scan and recognize any item, including fresh fruits and vegetables, prepared plates from any of the stations, or the various grab and go items that placed on the table.

A Take Home Hot & Ready Meals program allows hospital staff to order a full meal for four in advance to take home and enjoy. They can be picked up at the appropriate serving temperature and ready to be easily assembled.

The Quick Eats Grab & Go program was also expanded for on-the-go customers looking to limit physical interactions while making purchases. The core program menu strategy features fresh food menu offerings such as sandwiches, salads, bowls, snack boxes and other snacks.

Also in the interests of maintaining safety, a retail serve-to-order salad bar was developed that lets customers create their own customized salad by picking the ingredients.

Retail dining at VUMC includes the Courtyard Café, which serves breakfast (6-10:30 a.m.), lunch (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.), dinner (2-6:30 p.m.) and late night (6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.) menus weekdays and breakfast (6-10 a.m.), lunch (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and dinner (2 p.m. to 2 a.m.) menus weekends. The hospital also has Baja Fresh, Mein Bowl and Panera chain units, with Baja Fresh staying open until 1 a.m. weekdays after operating all day following its 8 a.m. opening. It also is open for lunch and dinner on weekends. Mein Bowl serves lunch and dinner weekdays and lunch Saturdays while Panera is an all-day operation (6 a.m.-11 p.m.) weekdays and closed weekends. Meanwhile, the Monroe Carell Children’s Hospital has a food court with Ben & Jerry's, Pizza Hut Express, Subway, Suzie's Espresso Coffee Shop, Taco Bell and Vandy Café units.