Wellness Bistro Welcomes BryanLGH Clients

John Lawn

When BryanLGH Medical Center, an acute care facility in Lincoln, NE, looked to build a new clinical and wellness facility for outpatient services and privatepay patients last year, the decision to add foodservice was a natural one.

"Our institution has needed this kind of facility for some time and the president wanted to make sure healthful foodservice was part of the environment there," says Dean Young, director of nutrition and dining services for the medical center. "He felt it would make an important contribution to the overall client and staff offering. So the Bistro at LifePointe was on the drawing board from the beginning."

BryanLGH is a not-for-profit acute care facility that is the result of the merger of two hospitals in the late 1990s. It serves a 200 mile radius of Lincoln, primarily in eastern Nebraska and parts of South Dakota and Kansas.

The $15 million LifePointe facility was built in a fast-growing residential part of Lincoln and offers BryanLGH clients a medically-based approach to health and wellness. The facility offers an urgent care center along with therapeutic services for arthritis, breast cancer recovery and sports medicine as well as spa services, aquatic facilities, aerobic and strength training programs, health and wellness assessments and a teaching kitchen. There are also medical experts in therapy, nutrition, fitness, smoking cessation and other wellness specialties.

"The Bistro at LifePointe," tucked into an area near the facility's entrance, opened to the public last January and operates from 7 am to 7 pm daily. It is staffed by two FTEs during most of the day, with a single employee handling morning and evening shoulder periods. The servery is designed around a full coffee bar, fresh-squeezed juice station and smoothie station with everything on the menu made or baked fresh. According to Young, the equipment budget to outfit the Bistro was $105,000, covering the cost of counters, sinks, shelving, smallwares, china, the POS system and production and serving equipment (see lists below).

Menus prominently feature whole fresh fruit, cereals, healthful pastries, cholesterol-free and regular egg selections and a wide variety of made-to-order salads, daily soups and fresh vegetable sides as well as popular breakfast and lunch sandwiches, paninis and pita pizzas. Nutritional analyses for all items will be posted once the menu is finalized.

In August, a spa menu will be introduced that offers customized small plate offerings such as fruit and cheese selections. Food is served on permanentware but is also available for takeout, with grab-and-go items merchandised via a refrigerated display case. Young notes that a fair number of customers purchase items for home consumption.

Back of the house production is handled from a small finishing kitchen adjacent to the servery, but paninis, made-to-order salads, and other items are made out front. The fresh orange juice machine is one of three used by the hospital throughout its facilities and has proven highly popular. ("We probably squeeze 35,000 oranges a year from all three units," says Young.) It is also employed to make fresh lemonade using lemons and either a simple sugar or an artificial sweetener solution.

Presently, the Bistro is doing about 75 transactions daily. Young expects it to reach about $500 in revenue and between 150-200 transactions a day as membership in the LifePointe programs grows and the center becomes more established. Check averages run $4-5 for lunches and between $2-3 for breakfast meals and snacks.