Finding a balance between great-tasting and nutritious food isn’t difficult when you build deep connections with residents—whether it’s listening to feedback, offering an educational series about healthy foods, or incorporating a resident’s family recipe for meatloaf. Dining at The Arbor Company is more than just a delicious meal; it’s about well-being, locally sourced, fresh foods, and connecting with each other. Hear more from our Regional Dining Director, Ryan King.
Chris
Well, Hey, everybody. You are watching Senior Living Live. My name is Chris. I'm one of the hosts of this show and I'm joined today with Ryan King, with the dining team here at the Arbor Company. How are you doing today, Ryan?
Ryan
Fantastic, Chris. Yourself?
Chris
I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. Thanks for joining us today. Taking time out of your busy day. So, Ryan, why don't we just get into it? Tell me a little bit about your role here in the Arbor Company.
Ryan
So for The Arbor Company, I'm regional vice president of dining, so I help support roughly 20 communities in the dining program on the culinary and hospitality end of it. So I provide direct support, come in, troubleshoot, help with recipe development, menu development stuff along those lines, making sure that the residents are getting top notch service in the dining rooms and just really trying to put together the best possible hospitality program that we can for our residents.
Chris
It's always amazing to see you work like we saw you today. You did a little cooking demonstration that we videoed and just your rapport with the staff and everything. It's always amazing. Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get into this?
Ryan
So my background is I so I started out actually at about 15 years old. I started out the town I’m from, had a little... it was a creamery and a family restaurant. So they made all like ice creams and all that stuff. And then they had attached to it, they had a restaurant. So I started off working in the creamery aspects all like my first job in like a kitchen, if you will, was like making milkshakes, scooping ice cream and stuff like that.
Ryan
And then one day they were sorting the kitchen. They asked if I could come back and help out and I have not left since then. And then from there it's kind of progressed. I did the restaurant, the the hotel thing. I work for Hilton for a while, and ultimately I kind of burned out, was working a lot of hours and stuff like that.
Ryan
I got a assistant director job in senior living. It was about ten years ago and I haven't left since. Fell in love with it and here I am now.
Chris
So that what an amazing story. What what did you fall in love with in senior living? What what led you to it?
Ryan
So the biggest thing for me is our residents. You know, I always look at it the way I explain it to people, especially when I do interviewing and stuff like that, that, you know, we're in the ultimate form of hospitality. You know, somebody comes into a restaurant, you know, they eat a meal, they're there for a couple of hours and they don't like the experience, they don't like the food.
Ryan
You know, they can move on. There's a million options and they can go to a hotel. Somebody might stay for a night, a week, whatever, on a vacation. But ultimately, they're still they're still going to, you know, get up and leave. Our residents, this is their home. So we're essentially working in their home. So it gives you that opportunity to really get to know the residents, build that rapport, find their likes, dislikes.
Ryan
Some of the best experiences are when somebody gives you like a family recipe that you can incorporate into into your menu. And you know, ultimately it's rewarding and challenging work at the same time because no matter no matter who you are, if you're eating in the same restaurant or in the same complex, you know, whether it's in a bistro or in the main dining room, you're still eating essentially at the same place every single day.
Ryan
So it really keeps us on our toes to ensure that we're doing a good job day in and day out and really providing what the residents are looking for on a daily basis.
Chris
So yeah, I feel like there's so much in that. How, how do you make so many people happy with food every single day?
Ryan
Well, to be completely honest, we strive for everybody to be 100% satisfied on a daily basis. But realistically, we know that that's not possible. Just because everybody's palates are different. So my rule of thumb is I want to make sure that 80% of the people really enjoy the menu options and specials that evening. And then just to ensure that that next day that we're capturing that other, that other 20%, really listening to the residents taking their feedback, finding out their their likes, dislikes, Like we're sitting here in Florida right now.
Ryan
There's a lot of transplants and stuff like that. We operate as a company kind of all across the United States in different regions, different food, everything like that. So, you know, in a place like Florida where it's kind of a melting pot of people from all over the country, a lot of times it's difficult to to find the happy medium between maybe, you know, the comfort food that you see in the Midwest and the southern food that you might see in like the Georgia area.
Ryan
And then, you know, the Northeast is, you know, a lot of heavy Italian influences and stuff like that. So it's just trying to find that nice kind of happy medium and blend to make everybody happy.
Chris
And and you say you want to make everybody happy, but, you know, maybe somebody doesn't like tonight's special. There's other options for us.
Ryan
Yeah. We always, you know, and we're willing to work with people take, you know, we have our meetings monthly, we do table touches on a daily basis. So we're getting you know, constant feedback. So it's not like, oh, okay, these are two, your two, your two options tonight. We have a whole other side of a menu with always available options that they can get, whether it's, you know, the fresh catch of the day, you know, some grilled chicken, a steak, all those options are there as well.
Chris
Okay. And so I know from the cooking demo that we did earlier today, But you're really passionate about superfoods.
Ryan
Absolutely. And, you know, that's that's something that we're you know, we're looking at, you know, it's that the health and wellness aspect, like there's the social component, which is extremely important because, you know, you bring people together, you sit down with your your table mates, you, you know, you have conversation stuff that's great for that. The social aspect, obviously you need food also for the nutrition aspect.
Ryan
It shouldn't be just, you know, you're eating food to sustain yourself. What we're trying to do is incorporate some of these superfoods and these different things and some educational series for the residents so that they can really make some informed decisions about what they're putting in their body. So today, Chris, we talked about using quinoa as a superfood that's, you know, a great substitute that you can utilize on it.
Ryan
You know, put on a menu, you can have it on as a starter. You can keep it on as you're always available. And it's it's a great grain alternative. So it's it's in most cases is better and better for you than, you know, rice, potatoes. It's also another great option for somebody that has might have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity where they can't eat some of those some of those items and just because you're eating healthy doesn't mean that the food's not going to be delicious.
Ryan
It's all in the preparation and everything like that. So, like, you know, healthy food doesn't need to be bland and boring. You can really incorporate a lot of flair and great things with superfoods and just healthy foods in general.
Chris
So how do you introduce that? I mean, people may be watching and they're like, what is quinoa? This does not sound like something that I want to eat. So how do you get that?
Ryan
So historically, the way I always did it back when I you know, I was a director at a community level. I tried to do at least quarterly. In an ideal world I would do a monthly is like little educational pieces, an activity with the resident for an hour where you know, you introduce some new things another great way that I had is like in our happy hours and stuff like that, trying to create appetizers out of some of these ingredients that they might not have been as familiar with because they get it in their head that if it, you know, they order something that we're not going to you know, and they don't like it, we're not going to give them something else, which is obviously not the case at all. So I've found over the years that it's a lot easier to get people to try stuff outside of the traditional dining room setting and kind of open open their their eyes to stuff.
Chris
Okay. Opening their eyes and sort of helping them. Yeah. And do you see that a lot with seniors in the communities that they're willing to try new things and...
Ryan
Yeah absolutely, you know you got to it's all relationships the relationship business so you know building that rapport at the residence they begin to trust you and stuff like that. You know they're a lot more willing to try stuff, but they come from a genera... A lot of them come from a generation where, you know, Monday night was always the same thing. Tuesday night was always the same thing. A lot of them have been eating the same thing for breakfast for 50 years. It's hard to it's hard to break that and it takes a little bit of time and you know, encouragement, but definitely have had good success.
Chris
But people tend to realize, too, that they need to do some of these things for their health.
Ryan
Absolutely. You know, that's the beauty of food is you can show them that it's healthy, but it can also be delicious. So you can make you know, you can still have that, you know, passion, to eat good food. You're just getting a little bit better on the nutritional side, which obviously helps with a bunch of different, you know, medical conditions, anything that comes up as you age.
Chris
Yeah. So dining is such an important part of everyone's life whether they live in a senior living community or not. You know, everyone has experienced family dinners and, you know, everyone, the gathering room in the house usually is the kitchen and things like that. And so people move into a community. And I think that's probably one of the things that they're most concerned with.
Chris
And at the same time, I know that you and the rest of the dining team at Arbor are focused on creating these new kind of like culinary commitments and things like that. How do those fit together in terms of giving people the experience that they want and how you're backing that up with your procedures and things?
Ryan
So it all comes to, like I said before, it's all the the relationship and the educational piece, so we can talk about the culinary commitments and there's a lot of great things on there, you know, you know, always, always fresh vegetables, you know, using proteins, no antibiotics. So you're not getting stuff that's being injected with like sodium solutions and all that kind of stuff.
Ryan
Hormones we’re trying to stay away from all that kind of stuff. Basically, we're trying to make it as as clean as as clean as possible when it comes to like, whole foods. You know, we're trying to limit very much the any additives and stuff along those lines. We also want to be responsible. So we source all of our vendors that we work source sustainable seafood.
Ryan
So we're not, you know, killing off fish population and everything like that. And it's just having the conversation. You know, a lot of times in my experience, you know, meeting people on tours and everything like that, they do they ask a lot of questions about the food and what you offer and stuff like that. And there's no, you know, definitive answer.
Ryan
Like I always, you know, teach and train directors like nothing is really off the table unless there's like a legitimate health concern, whether, you know, I'm you know, you know, we're not trying to do like clams on half shell or mussels in half. So just because they're seniors age, you know, their natural immune response isn't as strong as it once was.
Ryan
So you're you're running the risk with that. But, you know, we should be listening to them, taking feedback and trying to incorporate what they want, like onto these menus. Nobody, nobody nobody wants to feed these people food that they don't want to eat. You know what I mean? It should be everybody should be excited about what they're making and what they're they're feeding the residents on a daily basis.
Chris
And you find that most people that have moved in have have realized that.
Ryan
Yes. Absolutely.
Chris
Ok.
Ryan
And that's you know, it's you have having the conversations. It goes a long way when somebody says, my wife used to make meatloaf this way, would you be willing to try it? Absolutely will. Definitely 100% give it a whirl. And a lot of times what I like to do is I put a little shout out on the on the menu for it.
Ryan
It's like, you know, Helen's famous meatloaf or something along those lines. And then you get the positive feedback about it and then it opens up, you know, especially like a newer resident and stuff like that, you can kind of, you know, start bridging the gap and they can start having a conversation with some people that they might not have met yet.
Ryan
And it's a it's a great tool that way.
Chris
I think it all feeds into at Arbor, we talk about deep connections.
Ryan
Absolutely.
Chris
You know, really meeting people where they are and learning about them and backing into that. So as someone who has worked in, you've worked in a creamery and restaurants and, you know, in catering and hotels and things like that. Now, senior living, do you have advice for someone who may be considering a career in coming in to senior living in the culinary world?
Ryan
Absolutely. You don't have to change a thing. That's that's the biggest there's a lot of a mental hurdle. I do a lot of interviewing for executive chefs, directors and stuff like that. And that's, you know, there's a mental hurdle. They, you know, there's a negative stereotype. So people think of senior living food the way it might have been 30 years ago.
Ryan
Like, you know, you think of the hospital tray line and stuff like that. And that's that's just not how it is. It's fresh food cooked daily, you know, prepared in house. We're not bringing in, you know, Stouffer's lasagna and serving it. You know, we're making all that stuff ourselves. And especially as newer, the next generation seniors come in, they're a little bit more traveled, worldly.
Ryan
So there's nothing's really off the table when it comes to international cuisines and keeping up with trends and everything along those lines. So you still have that creative freedom that you would have in a restaurant, in a hotel. You're just now cooking for seniors.
Chris
And that it's been a rewarding and fulfilling role for you?
Ryan
Absolutely. And that's why, that's why I always when I went in with it, was that I'm not really going to change the way that I prepare food, the way that I present food, you know, proper garnishes, you know, height on plates, all those things that you would see at a nice restaurant we're doing. And that's what we're training the staff to be consistent on.
Ryan
So you'll see the microgreens, you'll see some height on plates, different different shaped vessels so it's not just always a circular plate. Different stuff like that, to give everything a look and feel that, you know, is very familiar to people that, you know, have gone out to eat and stayed in nice hotels.
Chris
Well, everything that I've seen that you've made has either tasted great if I haven't tasted it, at least looked great. And so we're thankful to have you here and doing all of that. So thanks for joining us today and being a part of Senior Living Live. And thank you for joining us at SeniorLivingLive.com. We've got stories like this and from plenty of other people where we go into senior living and talk about what makes the senior living community tick.
Chris
What, how everything works and kind of peeling back the curtain, I say, so that you can learn a little bit more about about what happens here in case you want to take that next step in your own journey. Be that moving into a community or taking a career in senior living and moving into that culinary world. Thank you so much for joining.
Chris
More stories like this are available at SeniorLivingLive.com, and until next time, we'll see you later. Bye.