Culinary Coach Services
Menus & Recipes + Workforce & Training + Dining with Dignity + Consulting + C-Level Coaching + New Communities & Concepts + Dining & Life Enrichment + Dining Program Evaluation
Take your dining to the next level.
It’s the center of community culture, and a competitive point of difference.
Culinary Coach was born out of the need for senior living and aging services companies to have direct access to experts in the culinary field—not a food contractor that profits from marking up your food or charging additional fees on your hourly employees, nor consultants who tell you what to do and then disappear. Our service is a hybrid dining management approach that is built to your needs. Buy as little or as much of our service as you need.
The Culinary Coach leadership team is at the top of their field, having served in food contracting companies, inside communities and in the retail and restaurant industries. This combination creates a holistic approach to your dining.
Lean on us for cycle menus, recipes, process and coaching to make your dining operation a success.
If you’ve got a burning question or a specific challenge to address, set up a 30 minute meeting, and we will hop on a call (or a plane) to help you.
We have 500+ residents and all levels of care and had gone through three different dining different contractors. The Culinary Coach helped us to succeed on our own. We’re achieving greater savings, controlling employee culture, and increasing resident satisfaction.
What we eat every day defines us.
Food is not only regional, but it’s personal and, we would argue, spiritual. When your community owns its own recipes and cycle menus, you have control of your culture, service, quality, and the vision for your brand. The traditional options available to retirement and health services communities are often canned menus and recipes that veer toward medical requirements or the processed products that food contractors heavily rely on. The Culinary Coach vision is to help organizations turn the ship toward fresh, healthy dining that modern elders want and deserve. For us, this is more than a job. It’s our mission.
Dining & life enrichment all in one.
Dining is more than just putting food in your mouth, chewing and swallowing. It’s an aesthetic experience that affects every aspect of our lives–mental, emotional and physical. We’ve put together a solution that gives your dining and life enrichment teams the tools, guides, recipes and schedule to create holistic life experiences by combining dining and activities. Check it out.
Please call us at 888-776-5135 to learn more about Culinary Coach.
Services we offer.
Consulting Programs
What dining program results are you looking to achieve, and why? The 3rdPlus Culinary Coach team is here to help you identify key objectives and accomplish your goals. We offer support to modernize dining programs, including evening out quality across all levels of care, costing, estimating, registered dietitian consulting and equipment consulting. We specialize in contract-to-self-operation conversions.
Menus & Recipes
Our recipes and cycle menus are delivered digitally in the Dining Cloud and provide everything you need for delicious culinary. This program addresses a common resident complaint by offering a wider variety of foods that the modern elder wants: fresh vegetable dishes, a potpourri of spices and flavors, and creative presentation—all composed into cycle menus with an option to create your own daily specials.
Workforce & Training
Success starts with hiring and training well, and then giving employees fair compensation and a clear path to success. This all contributes to lower turnover and a thriving culture. We’ll help support your leadership team by providing baseline training materials and developing policies to create a positive and engaged dining department.
C-Suite Coaching
Almost no C-level or management professional has also been a restaurant manager, and yet, that’s what they are expected to be when leading a senior living community. Whether you have a dining contractor or self-operate, some expert insight and advice may help you more effectively manage. We are available on an hourly consultation basis or retainer.
Dining With Dignity
For people in assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing, mealtimes are often the highlight of their day. With planning and creativity, your residents will be delighted with stimulating experiences for sight, smell, taste and sound. Our Dining with Dignity program helps communities deliver appealing and tasty dining experiences to health service residents that are on par with meals in independent living.
New Communities & Concepts
The best time to involve Culinary Coach is before you break ground on a new community or expansion. Building dining concepts and menus from the ground up gives you the opportunity to achieve better results while avoiding unnecessary capital layouts later. Plus, we provide design solutions to make it easier for residents to hear in crowded settings. We partner with designers to ensure a proper layout, equipment and kitchen strategies.
Self Operation Dining Models
Whether you’re currently self-operating and want to make some shifts or you’re using a dining contractor and would like to convert to self-op, the Culinary Coach has all the tools and training you’ll need. Cycle menus, recipes signed off by a registered dietitian, purchasing guides and all the intellectual materials and processes to effectively run a delicious dining program. Not just consultants or a food contractor, the Culinary Coach offers ongoing hybrid contracts to make you successful.
Meet our Vice President of Culinary and Operations.
Scott Daniels
Scott has spent much of his 20+ year career at food services and facilities management company Sodexo, most recently as a District Manager, overseeing 18 retirement/acute/subacute account locations. He is passionate about putting his experience to work helping senior living communities to effectively self-operate—with a focus on training, coaching and fresh, local ingredients.
Scott’s credentials include an associate degree in Occupational Studies from the Culinary Institute of America (with Honors) and Culinary Federation’s Certified Executive Chef appointment in American Culinary. He also earned the Federation’s Certified Culinary Administrator appointment. He is an American Academy of Chefs fellow inductee and a graduate of Sodexo Senior Living “Leadership Academy.”
Scott enjoys organic gardening, providing a home for rescue dogs from all over the world, fishing, his home and, of course, cooking!
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Schedule a Meeting.
Schedule a 30-minute meeting with us or call 888-776-5135 to learn more. We look forward to working with you!