Case Study: Friendship Village
DATA-DRIVEN DINING TRANSFORMATION YIELDS SIGNIFICANT RESULTS
Data, analytics and insights from Morrison Community Living drove transformation, branding and programming for Friendship Village dining venues. Morrison’s findings and resulting actions are increasing revenue, improving resident satisfaction and boosting occupancy.
“We pushed the envelope by building a restaurant in a senior living community that can be open to the public.”
Phillip Dopson, Vice President of Design and Retail
A Bold, First Step
With its resident-centric philosophy, Friendship Village recognized how important state-of-the-art dining venues are – and would continue to be – for residents. With an eye toward transformation, the community’s leaders awarded Morrison Community Living the dining services contract in 2015. “Right away, we began to engage in strategic visioning with Morrison which led to the first big step forward with our dining transformation – the Mosaic dining room,” explained Ben Gilchrist, Friendship VillageVice President of Operations.
“Current and future residents wanted an upscale, full-service dining venue and more on-campus dining variety,” noted Phillip Dopson, Morrison Vice President of Design and Retail. With that in mind, the multi-phase transformation started by converting
an existing three-meal-a-day buffet into Mosaic, a chic, new restaurant that couldn’t be more different from its predecessor. Guests are greeted and seated by hostesses, orders are taken tableside on iPad technology and chefs prepare food in a central, 360-degree open kitchen – with no walls or doors. And, guests order what they want from a menu that changes seasonally to reflect the freshest of ingredients. Adjacent to the restaurant is a permanent Teaching Kitchen which offers creative, culinary hands-on learning experiences for residents, families and prospects. “We went from no experience to a true dining experience,” Dopson affirmed.