Here we go!

" 'Don't Panic.' It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anyone has said to me all day"

-Arthur Dent, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy , Douglas Adams.

Ok, so I have been talking a lot about the Dining Room closure-like for two years and it is finally here. As you all know we will be closing our Dining Room and bar on Monday for at least three months. Last week I sent out an article outlining what we were doing with the understanding that it might change. So there are a few changes and I will do another overview now.

Meals in the Tent will be Monday Wednesday, Friday nights and Sunday Brunch. That same menu will be available in the Hive or by calling the takeout line 720 348 7824. Leave a message by noon, your takeout order will be filled by two and will be on a shelf at the former entrance to the dining room.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays there will be a social in the Tent with food and drink, - a great time to socialize and relax. There will still be takeout and The Hive available on those nights using a meal credit. We are not taking reservations for these events at this time, if we find that they are overcrowded we may have to adjust that. We will be serving house wines, beer, and non alcoholic drinks. If it rains of course we will not ask residents or staff to expose themselves to the elements and will have to cancel. Not much we can do about the weather.

We ordered some fancy new induction buffet equipment but of course it has not arrived yet, so the first dinner or two will be with the old chafers but I promise we will be discarding those as soon as it is possible. We are doing buffet style service, but we are worried that the tent does not have much room for a line and are concerned about too much moving around with walkers and such on the AstroTurf. To that end, Susan and David would like to try server directed service where the menu is on the table, you tell them what you want and the server brings it to you. This may help with turnaround too, please be aware that we need residents to be in and out in an hour so that we can seat the next group of residents and so we ask that you work with us on this. You may find yourself with multiple plates at a time as the servers try to make sure you have everything you need, just please be patient as they are only trying to help.

In the tent Kendall has kindly found us some cooling fans for hot weather, we are going to run them on high before service and then low or off during service to keep the noise level down-depending on just how hot it is versus how much noise we can tolerate. There will also be tables and chairs on the Pool Patio, Kendall tells me he has ordered those as well as umbrellas so we can stay cool.

I want to remind everyone that this is temporary, that everyone will get fed and that we will only get through all this by working together, understanding each other and being patient.

We will be having Culinary corner in the Art room this Monday at 10 am