Hospital fine-dining restaurant attracts customers who are there to dine only

CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Jello, greasy gravy and stale bread is what you might expect to eat at a hospital.  But institutional cafeteria food is the last thing you’ll find at Castle Rock Adventist Hospital thanks to executive chef Daniel Skay.

He laughs when he talks about the response he gets when he tells people what he does for a living. “A chef, where do you work? and then I give the response ‘well I work in a hospital’  and they  go ‘oh’?”

But Skay is no ordinary cook. He’s a gold medal winner after winning a national competition in 2009 for hospital chefs. “I wanted to build a restaurant that was open to the public, to take care of their health needs and to be a destination restaurant that serves healthy food,” said Skay.

Manna is the name of the restaurant and it is sit down, fine dining with a wait staff, no cafeteria trays or drinks from a cooler.

The dining room has a view hard to beat, directly west facing the mountains and its prices are incredibly affordable because the restaurant is subsidized by the hospital.

“I ordered the Quattro Formaggi pizza and it was really cheap, it was only $6 for a good size pizza,” said customer Abbie Spreir.

Customer Tyler Clement is still pleasantly surprised by the prices, “Two meals, with two appetizers, we`re probably sitting at about $17 dollars where a normal lunch is probably $30-40.  Very cheap plus there`s no tipping either so that doesn`t suck. ”

The restaurant has a donation jar that benefits local charities but it’s true, there is no tipping the wait staff.

Seventy-five percent of the customers come strictly to eat at Manna, not because they’re visiting a patient or seeing a doctor at the hospital. The kitchen is divided in half, one side works for patients who order room service, the other side serves the restaurant crowd.