Newswise — For children staying at hospitals, meal times can be one of the brightest spots in their days. Planners took this to heart when planning the new cafeteria at the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, which opens in November.
The Getaway n Play Café in the C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, will offer a combination of healthy but fun food options as well as a variety of activities that promise to make meals fun and provide entertainment - for children and women patients and their families.
“We will have a variety of entertainment and activities,” says contract administrator Craig Luck, a member of the retail food service team. “Story times and magicians, TV and movie nights will be on tap for kids.
For new moms and moms-to-be, the plan is to offer manicure and pedicure days.”
They really blew everyone away with their vision and solutions for our requirements,” says Luck of the contractor, Aramark.
Slated to open Nov. 14, the retail food vendor will bring together the vision created by a team of U-M Health System employees, patients and families, which met for about a year, discussing dining preferences.
The new café will feature a Subway Sandwich shop, a full menu featuring noodle entrees, sandwiches and grilled favorites, a ‘Snatch it Up’ area for grab-and-go items, and a dessert bar.
The Subway choice will give kids an option they recognize that still is healthy, says Luck.
“Kids want something they recognize because they know what to expect, but Subway also allows us to meet M-healthy requirements.”
All products will be local and the cafeteria will offer green products such as biodegradable potato-product forks and spoons.
Catering and bulk meals are available so families and kids can have family-style meals together. Breakfast is available all day. And, some food choices will come in regular or mini portions with healthy baked options.
The Getaway n Play Café will be open from 6 a.m. – 12 a.m., with a limited menu after 9 p.m., daily.
The food service selection team identified over a dozen areas of interest to define requirements for the new dining facility. The team created a survey for staff, patients and families.
"We met for a full year to look at different attributes of the retail food choice,” says Jackie Lapinski, children’s and women’s hospital project manager. “We talked about nutrition, greenness, food choices and family needs.”
The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the country. It was nationally ranked in all ten pediatric specialties in the U.S. News Media Group’s 2011 edition of “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals” including third in the country for heart and heart surgery. In November, the hospital moves to a new 1.1 million square feet, $754 million state-of-the-art facility that will be home to cutting-edge specialty services for newborns, children and women.
Written by Margarita B. Wagerson
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