Working for the >Patron Saint of Lost Causes can create a healthy appetite. It’s evident among the families and staff who dine at the Kay Café. It’s equally evident that the culinary staff is determined to sate healthy appetites with healthy fare.
The Café serves over 2500 meals a day. Nearly half of their produce and protein is locally sourced. The menus change on the fly depending on what’s in season. Their ethic of sharing food is on display everyday. Doctors and staff eat side-by-side with patients and families.
Food trucks featuring locally sourced dishes, park near the outside dining space. The Café offers a Square Meals program providing healthy meals to go. There is a weight watchers counter and a make your own pizza line for kids.
That was Miles McMath’s brainstorm. His kids like pizza and he and his wife are always trying to get them to eat healthy. So the Culinary Director at St. Jude “… made some really good dough and some sauce from our own tomatoes.” He put out fresh toppings from the garden and let them have at it.
The Café is about to launch a Stoplight Theme to “incent” healthy eating. Items marked with a red light are okay to eat in moderation; yellow lights are somewhat healthier so you could eat a little more of them, and you can eat as much green light food as you can hold. The food is priced accordingly; red is more expensive than yellow which is more expensive than green. The healthy food is cheaper.
Soon the entry to the Café will be rearranged to display healthy food first. McMath thinks that will make a difference. “If a kid walks in and the first thing he sees is a cookie, he’s gonna want a soda. If he gets fresh cantaloupe maybe he’ll make a different decision on the soda.”
The Kay Café cares most about families. A family advisory council –including former patients– meets quarterly to provide advice on how to make the Café experience better. The meetings are not always pleasant, “Some of these families have lost kids here,” McMath said.
The advisory council let the staff know how difficult it can be for families to navigate the Café. Moms and Dads winding through the food counters with three trays, a stroller, a wheelchair, and a couple of strays to keep track of was not uncommon. Today there are volunteers in bright yellow shirts circulating to help balance the trays and push the strollers, as the families get their food. A cookbook is next up. Anything that makes it easier for the families to eat fits McMath’s mission, “These families have enough to deal with.”