Beating Crosstown Traffic

IN-HOUSE DINING FOR OUTPATIENTS: Sterling Pizza Cafe, in Beaumont's Medical Center facility, offers convenient meal choices for the building's staff and visitors. Photo: Michael Buzalka

The William Beaumont Hospitalin Troy, MI, serves two masters. The main facility is located in Oakland County along Dequindre Road. Two years ago, Beaumont opened an outpatient services center across Dequindre, which happens to be in not only another municipality (Sterling Heights) but also another county (Macomb).

To connect the two, the hospital built an enclosed elevated walkway over Dequindre, a four-lane expressway with zooming traffic that would otherwise be difficult to negotiate. In the middle of the walkway is the demarcation line between the two jurisdictions.

The line also serves to divide customer bases for Beaumont's retail dining services. The main facility has always had a cafeteria, a fairly traditional eatery that is open from six in the morning to 2 a.m. and serves some 1,500 customers a day, It includes a grill, salad bar and entree station that offers popular daily specials. (There's also a Starbucks station near the main entrance).

When the new medical center opened at the end of 2009, it included a new retail dining outlet called the Sterling Pizza Cafe. As its name implies, it serves pizza — fresh out of a gas fired pizza oven — as well as fresh salads and made to order sandwiches, a menu distinct from what's served in the other building.

“We needed variety as well as a safety valve for our hospital traffic, and Sterling serves that purpose very well,” says Nutrition Services Director Ann Kovl, RD.

• Sterling Pizza Cafe design by The Hysen Group