Aberdeen Ridge: Providing community connection through foodAberdeen Ridge: Providing community connection through food

On the west side of Colorado Springs, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, there is a plot of land that was first slated for a senior living facility in 2015. The owner later shelved those plans and Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America (PMMA) bought the land in 2019, announcing they would build a gorgeous new life plan complex called Aberdeen Ridge. But then COVID hit. 

PMMA finally began site work in 2021 and planned to open in spring 2023—but additional construction challenges and delays hampered those plans. The first resident didn’t move in until October 2024, and three months later, Aberdeen Ridge now has only about 40 residents on site.

Yet Aberdeen Ridge is already a vibrant community, thanks in large part to efforts from the foodservice team to make the complex feel like home even with many spaces not yet open: welcome wagons for new residents, potluck parties, poker nights, chef demonstration dinners and much more. 

“We honestly thought once residents had been here a few weeks, some might just eat in their rooms—but they’re here in the dining room every night. And not at the four-tops, but at the big community table,” says Executive Chef Carl Sette, who is employed by Cura Hospitality. “It’s a real sense of community. They want to engage with each other, and with us.”

General Manager Robert Huckels has carefully tended to that sense of engagement since he was hired in May 2023, at which time everyone expected that the residents would soon be moving in. Instead Huckels, who is also employed by Cura, had to find a way to form relationships with depositors—while they all waited another year and a half for Aberdeen Ridge to welcome its first resident.

“We've had to keep them engaged and excited about their new home even though it wasn’t ready yet,” says Huckels. “It wasn’t the original plan, but it ended up becoming a very easy transition over time: I got to know them through food and over a few glasses of wine. It all blossomed from there.”

Huckels, who acted as executive chef until Sette joined in August 2024, first introduced himself to the future residents through a variety of chef demonstrations starting in May 2023. These evolved into Tasty Tuesdays, when he shared samples of two items he planned to include on the menus. He learned: Watch the salt content. They liked spicy, but not too spicy. Small plates were a hit.

That summer, they ramped up to full-on parties. At the beer bash, residents snacked on appetizers and blind-tested nine beers—with the top-voted ones selected as those Huckels would put on tap at the bar. Shortly afterward came a larger party featuring a variety of bottles from wine distributors, and the residents’ votes chose the house wine. Huckels also hosted monthly potluck parties.

“We have a lot of folks here who still enjoy cooking, and they’re very proud of that,” Huckels says. “I would do the entrée, like barbecue smoked brisket in July and turkey in November, and they’d bring the sides. That participation was really important and contributed to this sense of camaraderie.”

As construction progressed, Huckels also brought the patiently waiting future residents on “hard hat tours” to see the upcoming new spaces. His favorite part of the tour was showing off the production kitchen’s Jade Cooking Suite, a state-of-the-art set of equipment in a design made popular by Thomas Keller: All equipment is contained in a central rectangle, with stations like grill and saute each self-contained with the refrigeration, tools and setups they need. 

“You can ‘turn and burn’ in those stations,” Huckels says. “The first couple weeks I did everything myself on the Jade. I could make omelettes, Reubens, entrees, all from a very small footprint so I wasn’t having to clean a giant production kitchen.”

But as Aberdeen Ridge prepared in early 2024 to welcome its first residents that October, it was clear Huckels needed help. Sette joined that August through Cura, and additional team members—who are employed by PMMA—include a breakfast and lunch cook, a dinner cook (with a second coming on soon), a sous chef, a chef, a front-of-house supervisor, a bartender and three servers. 

“I feel very strongly that you need the cream of the crop when hiring your core team,” Huckels says. “We have a very strong core who are all Swiss Army knives. If I have to ask a cook to do dishes, they’ll do anything that needs to be done. There is no ‘it’s not my job’; at this junction we just can’t have that. They’ve all been flexible and understanding—and it’s because they truly care about our residents.”

The Jade Cooking Suite allows Food Service Director Robert Huckels and other staff to make a variety of dishes without the need of a big production kitchen.

Welcome home

That care is clear in personal touches like a welcome wagon, in which Sette visits each resident a few hours after move-in with a tray of snacks in hand: four Hawaiian sweet roll ham and turkey sandwiches, four-ounce homemade chocolate chip cookies, four bags of chips, a selection of fruit, and four bottles of water.

“I walk up with that tray, and my first statement to them is, ‘Welcome home.’ You immediately see this sense of relief on their faces,” Sette says. “It's just a kind way to say, ‘We see you. We're happy you're here. We welcome you to this community.’”

With a maximum of two daily move-ins, that community is growing slowly but steadily. In the spring, Aberdeen Ridge is slated to open its largest residential building, and eventually the complex will be fully open as originally planned.

“We’ve had a lot of roadblocks, but I don’t see them as problems; they’re opportunities,” Huckels says. “I’ve had the chance to get to know our residents well, and we listen very carefully to their input. As attentive and successful as we are with 40 residents, I want to do the same for the next 140 and 240.”

Get to know Aberdeen Ridge’s Robert Huckels

See what’s in store for Huckels’ operation, which was named FSD’s January Foodservice Operation of the Month.

Q:  What is it that makes your operation excel?

The dining experience is really important—but what people remember about it is not the chandeliers, or the fancy equipment, or the beautiful napkins. What they remember is the people, and how they were treated by the people. I’m lucky to be surrounded by quality people who truly care about what we do. When you have that, the rest takes care of itself.

Q: What are your goals for the operation in the coming year? 

We have a monster project on our hands, with our buildings soon filling up with many more residents. Right now, we’re moving people into the 70-unit Vista building. In April, we’ll start putting residents into the Highlands, which is our largest with 100 apartments. After that we’ll go into the Cheyenne building, which is our memory and assisted care.

Each of those areas will have their own fully functional satellite kitchens and dining rooms. When we’re done, in total we’ll have five kitchens operating at the same time. We’re really excited to get to that point.