New Break Rooms, Meal Perks Help Senior Living Operators Create A ‘second Home’ For Staff 

Senior living providers are reframing their dining programs through hospitality, but these changes start with staff support behind the scene.

As operators weigh which changes to make to improve working conditions for staff, they are taking cues from other industries by creating Costco-style break rooms, retooling employee meals and building new training programs.

Atlanta-based Thrive Senior Living has made its culinary department a centerpiece of independent living. But to get there, the company had to recognize the important contributions of the people that work in senior living kitchens, according to Thrive Senior Living Senior Vice President of Operations Tate Stewart.

“A switch flipped for us with dining,,” Stewart said. “We put a lot of thought into the experience of a CNA over the years, [now we’re] giving that same thought and structure to our servers and our cooks and dishwashers.”

Other operators including Discovery Senior Living and Harbor Retirement Associates (HRA) have also made changes to how they better support culinary staff in 2025 including free meal benefits for every shift in most cases, better management of culinary team scheduling to prevent burnout and upgrading break rooms to make breaks restorative. This is all in the name of professionalizing culinary operations towards hospitality-focused senior living dining.

‘Employees have to come first’ to improve operations

Operators spend a lot of time and energy putting resident needs first, and for good reason given that revenue from residents keeps the lights on. But that revenue will not flow if staff aren’t there to make communities run.

“Pay extra attention to your culinary team because they are seen and not heard quite often,” Discovery Senior Living Assistant Vice President of Culinary Innovations and Programming Amy Robinson said.

That’s why the Bonita Springs, Florida-based operator views staff satisfaction as a prerequisite to executing on a hospitality-first dining concept. According to Robinson, “employees have to come first,” in order to succeed.

“They are the ones caring for our residents. If they’re unhappy, whether it’s with leadership, their break room, or anything else, they won’t be able to deliver the level of service our residents deserve,” Robinson said.

Employees at many Discovery communities can order complimentary food from the kitchen once per shift. Discovery also established a feedback system that allows managers to solicit feedback from employees and swap out unpopular menu items for their shift meals. 

This is all in the name of giving “associates exactly what they’re looking for” while working long hours in fast-paced senior living dining rooms, Robinson said.

Including all team members on meal benefits, especially third-shift workers on overnight schedules, is also important. Senior living community kitchens are usually closed during overnight hours, meaning that those staffers might miss out on meal benefits without some planning.

That is why Thrive implemented a system wherein night shift employees can order their food ahead of time. The community’s chefs cook meals while the kitchen is still open, and staff can grab them from coolers once they arrive for their shift.

It’s important for senior living providers, and executive directors, to be better about “anticipating the reality” of culinary teams on the ground, said HRA Vice President of Hospitality Anthony Polito. This will help “create the culture” of a community, which often stems from an involved and visible culinary team, he added.

“They can still be creative and all that fun stuff but also create the culture, that heart piece, why we do it and the tremendous impact that we can make on our residents and families when they join,” Polito said.

HRA doesn’t offer free meals to employees, but it does offer them as a reward from time to time. The operator might treat a high-performing employee to a fine-dining experience with their family, , Polito added. Additionally, recognizing employees for their hard work helps create an “even playing field” for culinary workers and associates in other departments.

Having an “available menu” for employees has helped bring options for staff seeking a filling meal during a shift, and workers have access to meals prepared during special events in a to-go box at their shift, Stewart said. This has helped “give some autonomy” to communities in offering meal benefits to staff.

Improving break rooms, remodeling ‘cringe worthy’ areas

Senior living providers have made changes to the physical layout of communities to better design communities that support engagement, bring in nature and fit the needs of today’s senior living customers. That must also extend to employee break room spaces.

With over 350 communities under management, Robinson said some of the Discovery’s communities have in the past had some “cringe worthy” break room settings for employees, given the age of some properties. But there’s been a push to improve break room settings to make them “special” for employees and make them a “second home.”

Discovery communities held a sales-based competition in which the winning community in the company’s 40-state portfolio got a break room renovation.

“Some chose to have it professionally done. Some chose to work together, and they picked the paint and they painted it themselves, and they had a great time doing it so it was a team building as well,” Robinson said.

For other break room settings, Discovery authorized new paint, new amenities like furniture in ways that didn’t “break the bank” to provide quality break rooms for staff with some improvements costing under $3,000 while doing other things like adding refreshment stations to the executive director’s office, Robinson said.

At Thrive, Stewart said local team leaders at communities took ownership of break room updates, authorizing capital expenditures for projects to make improvements even as it’s “easy to skip” updates to break rooms. Two standards for improving employee break rooms include using natural light and having finishes that match resident rooms in quality. One of the community’s latest projects, Thrive at Montvale in New Jersey, the break room has “nap pods” for staff to rest, along with lockers and a large functional space “in the right place” for associates.

“We feel like that sends a message,” Stewart said. “We want a place where team members can drop their bags and actually use the space.”

Stewart urged operators considering ground-up development to not forget the break room, calling it an “easy opportunity” to reimagine staff support spaces.

That attention to design in new development for supporting staff is critical, Polito said, calling the break room area should be “a uniquely different space” along with adding amenities like smart TVs, air fryers and even gaming consoles like Xbox or Playstation.

These senior living leaders see the next era of senior living dining being driven by hospitality trends in operations, but this transformation starts with supporting, training and equipping culinary teams with thoughtful break rooms.

But this transformation can cause growing pains with a “breakdown” that can happen between restaurant industry folks working as chefs, cooks and back-of-house staff and front-of-house servers and dining associates.

To address this, Thrive communities have hired front-of-house managers that are on the director level, which has “balanced out” some of the challenges in melding the hospitality mindset with execution in meal preparation and service.

This relationship in dining staff must be considered in recruitment and hiring, emphasizing “the good, the bad and the ugly” of the realities of working in senior living, Polito noted. This led HRA to seek applicants that have restaurant experience with personalities that can be coached or trained in the soft skills required in a hospitality-forward senior living setting.

“It even starts before they’re hired,” Polito added.

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