Blakeford Senior Life Modernizes Dining and Improves Resident Satisfaction
Enhance the resident experience with dining renovations to modernize multiple venues
Seamless continuity of the dining program regardless of disruptions
A truly collaborative hospitality partnership provides vital consistency and quality standards
Brian Barnes, President & CEO of Blakeford Senior Life in Nashville, Tennessee, took on his role in 2018. Upon his arrival, it didn’t take long before he began receiving feedback about their existing dining and hospitality program and the general dissatisfaction from the residents.
Having worked with a different outsourcing provider for their dining program for about three years, they were not getting the results their residents and the community’s team expected.
Selecting Morrison Living, an operating company of CCL Hospitality Group, for their new hospitality partnership improved overall resident satisfaction. Through collaboration with The Hub, the retail and design experts at CCL Hospitality Group, they enhanced the resident experience with dining renovations to modernize multiple venues within the community and provide greater flexibility.
Not long after the new partnership began, the global pandemic hit, which meant the dining room had to shut down. Like many senior living communities, it meant they needed to pivot very quickly to smoothly continue the dining program with minimal disruption. Upon day-to-day operations being able to resume mostly as normal in the wake of pandemic restrictions, Blakeford Senior Life began one of the biggest dining renovation and improvement projects in their history.
Describing this as a time period of “constant problem solving” to navigate the pandemic and then a multi-million-dollar renovation project, Brian adds the teamwork and collaboration with Morrison Living has played a vital role in how the community is shaped now and for the future.
Through this partnership, Blakeford Senior Life was able to significantly improve overall resident satisfaction as well as enhance resident experience with dining venue renovations that included a “grab and go” retail market that provides flexibility for residents as well as staff.
From style and design to practical day-to-day usage, they leveraged the expertise of The Hub’s retail and design experts to ensure lasting positive impacts on the resident hospitality experience.
Because of this partnership, we had access to the expertise to know what, when, and how to approach our community’s renovation planning.
ALLISON GRIFFITH
COO | Blakeford Senior Life
Since Blakeford Senior Life decided to partner with Morrison Living, they have improved overall resident satisfaction while also enhancing the hospitality experience with renovated dining venues in collaboration with The Hub.
They have successfully increased menu diversity, and overall, are getting higher scores on resident satisfaction, but consider it an ongoing evolution. Supported by the consistency that Morrison Living provides, the community has elevated the “whole culinary experience” including improvements in service and food quality.
Allison Griffith, Chief Operating Officer at Blakeford Senior Life, has been with the community for 21 years. She shares that partnering with Morrison Living provided extra resources to their community that felt almost like a “magic closet” that they could open to help their operations continue running seamlessly.
