Meeting the special dietary needs for those living in Senior Housing -- Guess who rated below average?

Recently, Nutritional Concepts of Northbrook Illinois was asked to explore the quality of menus currently available at local Senior Housing facilities.

They focused on six random facilities, taking into account size (number of residents and locations), for profit or non profit, national and/or Illinois-centric, nursing and/or assisted living. They have no association or interest in any of them. They examined several issues they thought would be of interest to their clients.

What is the quality of the food and menu?
Do they accommodate for special dietary needs?
How is the food prepared (chef or food service)?
Has a health professional helped create and periodically evaluates the menu?
In their opinion, only one out of the six facilities passed muster.

They rated Friendship Village as BELOW AVERAGE and commented:
Friendship Village of Schaumburg (only IL location)
The menu is loaded with heavy sauces, cream soups, and gravy.

For the full story, see Bonnie's Blog

Seasons restauraunt -- too small to serve the community

Listen to the Bridgewater Place Marketing pitch and they will tell you about the great on site restaurant "Seasons"...and it is wonderful! Problem is, poor planning resulted in a restaurant facility that is too small to serve the community. Initially, you could just come down whenever you were ready and get a table. Then more people started moving in. Now you need a reservation. Sounds innocent enough, until you try to get one. Everyone scrambles to the Hospitality desk when it opens in the morning to get a reservation, resulting in a traffic jam and many frustrated customers.

But wait, there's more! Read the post below. Bridgewater Place is only 70% occupied. If you think it's busy now, wait until the other 51 people move in. It will be a disaster.

Friendship Village management, are you ignoring this situation? How come we don't see any effort to resolve this? Can I suggest longer hours? How about more tables outside of Seasons, like you did this past weekend for Mother's Day.

Bridgewater Place population below target -- an opportunity for buyers!

There are a total of 170 units in Bridgewater Place, but only 119 are occupied. Budget is 123 and there are 51 vacant. So if you're looking to buy; know that you are in a position to negotiate yourself a great deal. Friendship Village is struggling to fill the place and will do whatever they can to get you to sign up!

At the same time, Friendship Village is offering residents a $500 referral reward. So if you know someone living here, make sure they get the bonus.

Name tags -- Good idea / Poor execution

Friendship Village has given all the residents a name badge. This is a wonderful idea as many of us can occasionally forget a name soon after an introduction. The badges have magnetic clasps and are an attractive gold color, BUT, the names were printed on label stock using an inkjet printer and are easily smudged if they get wet. So be careful when you eat and don't drip anything on your name tag.