Dining Room Issues

Dining Room Series: Dinner Fiasco at the Chateau

Tonight’s dinner was nothing short of a fiasco. For example, there was no butter on the tables, even though butter had been served in the dishes at the noon meal. When residents asked about it, Paula got on the microphone and announced that there was no butter — period. That was simply not true. This is not the first time she has misled residents, and she has become increasingly surly and gruff in her manner.

In contrast, when Carl was absent from his chair at dinner, Paula immediately said she would go ahead and serve him the number one choice, and if he didn’t show up, she would “take care of it.” The inconsistency and favoritism are frustrating and only add to the dining room tensions I’ve been documenting.

The quality of the meals has also declined since I first moved in. At the beginning, the meats were tender, and pasta and chicken were not served nearly every day. Colleen, along with Jason, the chef, once promised that meal quality would improve — but the opposite has happened.

Executives from Provincial Senior Living and Discovery Senior Living are scheduled to visit next Thursday. I hope they will take the time to sit down with residents, because there is real strain between the servers and those of us who live here. The staff should be here to serve us and help make this feel like home. Instead, they seem to focus on pleasing their supervisors and the management team.

To make matters worse, when I mentioned my website to Colleen, she smirked and dismissively said, “Yeah right, I’m not interested.” Her condescending tone summed up exactly how disconnected the management can feel from the residents they are supposed to support.

This post continues my dining-room series, where I share both the challenges and constructive solutions that residents are raising. From the “Open Seating Table” pilot to tonight’s fiasco, my goal is to document these issues honestly so that when leadership visits, they hear our side of the story.

Next Steps
When the executives visit, residents hope to propose a few clear improvements:

• Consistency and honesty in communication from staff.

• Better meal quality, with more variety and fewer shortcuts.

• Respectful treatment of residents, prioritizing hospitality over management politics.

• A collaborative forum where residents’ feedback is taken seriously and addressed regularly.

The goal is not to criticize for the sake of it, but to restore the sense of community and care that should define life at the Chateau.