Confessions Beyond the Food
Confessions Beyond the Food is a podcast about working in the Food Industry. People who work in the Food Industry have grit and lots of stories to tell. W3 Sales, a sales & marketing company, will host this podcast with their confessions on how they have a new, fresh approach and invite guests to confess their secrets to their sauce.
Confessions Beyond the Food
Redefining Senior Living Services with Aaron Fish
What happens when you blend the precision of computer science with the heart of hospitality? Join host Nancy Ridlen in this insightful episode of Confessions Beyond the Food as she interviews Aaron Fish, CEO of Trestle Hospitality Concepts.
Aaron shares how senior living communities are transforming with strategic growth, creative revenue opportunities, and elevated dining experiences to meet the demands of a new generation. Discover how innovative culinary approaches, smart regional expansion, and technology are shaping the future of senior living, while providing chefs and hospitality professionals a chance to thrive. Tune in to learn how senior living is evolving beyond just care—into an experience-driven lifestyle.
Welcome to Confessions Beyond the Food. I'm your host, Nancy Ridland. Let's dig in and get inspired. Hi, welcome to Confessions Beyond the Food. My name is Nancy Ridland and I'm with W3 Cells Today. We have Aaron Fish in the studio. He's founder and CEO of Trestle and is a seasoned professional in the hospitality industry, specifically known for his leadership and senior living. Welcome, Aaron.
Speaker 2:Hi Nancy, thanks for having me, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to have you here today, so we're going to do things a little bit different. We're going to have you do your confession, to start off with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so tell us something none of us know.
Speaker 2:So kind of ironic that we're doing this newish form of broadcasting. But when I was in college I actually was a co-host on two news radio campus shows. So I went to school at Kansas State University and we had a. Our news program was called A Purple Affair, which because the school colors are purple, and so I was a co-host on that show. And then we had another one called Campus Life and so it was the kind of news and talk portion of the radio station and I was co-host for those shows for a year.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So this is. You are comfortable in this space.
Speaker 2:Yes, very much so.
Speaker 1:You never knew that this was going to prepare you for what you did today. Do you feel like that sometimes?
Speaker 2:No, for sure it's one of those like how did I wind? Oh, I came full circle, so that's kind of cool. So.
Speaker 1:So tell us about how you got from broadcast journalism to an expert in senior living.
Speaker 2:So I so my college career was kind of a little bit of a journey. Some of us were like that and so I actually went to school as a computer science major. But then I didn't really like that. I wanted something where my personality could come through and it just was really kind of stodgy and boring the people I was working with. So I got into mass communications because I love the idea of being on the radio doing TV work. You know, I ran some cameras for the local campus TV station even, but I just never really found my niche there. And so I got into the hospitality management program and that's where I really was like I could connect with people, my personality really came through and I just it was kind of this way of service and I just I've just loved doing it and kind of been doing that ever since. I got into the hotel industry from there, worked at a hotel for about seven and a half years and then stumbled into senior living food service and I've been there for the last 21 years.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I mean, that's what happens, everybody. If you're thinking about getting into hospitality, it sucks you in. You will never get out. Right, you'll never get out. It's so fun, and I love that you're dedicated to service, so tell us a little bit about you know your experience with senior living and where it's led you to today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I, like I said, I stumbled into senior living. I got engaged 20 some odd years ago and I needed to move to where my fiance was Right and so I took a job at a continuing care retirement community as a dining room manager was a dramatic shift from hotels to the senior living. But initially it was well, this was a good little placeholder. It was, you know, good pay, everything was fine. And then I was going to go back into hotels and I right place, right time.
Speaker 2:Over the course of the next 18 months the COO on that campus was like we need to be less hotels and my hospitality management degree all came to play and I wound up going from a dining room manager to the director of dining services for this 900 person campus in Kansas City.
Speaker 2:So fortunately, being a food and beverage director at a hotel helped me with that transition.
Speaker 2:But I had to learn so much more about senior living and the healthcare aspects of it and how institutional food and hospitality and that whole transition really kind of led me to this idea of senior living was and still is somewhat behind, kind of what the trends and everything you see in restaurants and hotels and kind of that commercial food service world and so I've always kind of tried to position myself and take opportunities where I could go into an organization and bring that hospitality forward mindset to our daily operation. So it's not just, hey, we've got to serve three meals a day because it's required by the rules, but we're going to create three service experiences around food for the residents we serve. And so I've kind of had that driving passion through not only that role but getting into the kind of corporate side of building programs for operators, which then led me to what I'm doing now with my own company, trestle Hospitality Concepts, where I do basically fractional executive work in food and hospitality for senior living operators executive work in food and hospitality for senior living operators.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. I love that you, you know, saw a need and and how to bring, you know, bring hospitality to the next level in senior living. And what a cool journey. I mean, within 18 months, you're like running the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was trial by fire. Drinking from a fire hose. Think of all the cliches.
Speaker 2:That's what it was for sure yes, and then, prior to this, you managed a group that had 50 plus properties, and so yeah, the last role I took before I started my company I was the senior vice president of food and beverage for an operator, 54 properties in six different states across the Southeast and Texas, and so you know it was a lot and but they were. You know they were a fairly new company. You know a lot of experience on the executive team, but newer into the management realm. When I started with them and I was with them for five and a half years and was basically started, I was handed a cycle menu, an order guide for purchasing and a brand new point of sale system that we never wound up using because it was not designed for senior living and that was it. And so it was.
Speaker 2:Let's build this program from the ground up. And what are the kind of? What is the strategy behind that? How do you build a regional team that can help support that many locations? And when I started they only had a team. So we not only built the program around food and hospitality but we also acquired and grew our portfolio. So it was not just the operational pieces but there was design, development for how kitchens would operate in new builds, the training and development pieces that go into having to oversee a large food service operation like that, so a lot of that kind of. Let me see that there was so many smaller operators that need that kind of support, and so that's what I do now with Trestle is I work with those smaller regional operators, maybe 15 locations or so or less, and provide that fractional executive strategic support for their food and hospitality operations.
Speaker 1:So when they come to you, what do you I mean what's kind of the first thing you attack Like, what do you see as the biggest opportunity to bring them, you know, into not even compliance, but to, you know, just to today's standards?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, usually what I find with the, these smaller operators, is that they're they've kind of given their local chefs or directors the keys to that castle, and if you've done a really good job of hiring, then they're going to be successful.
Speaker 2:But if you've missed the mark on the hire, then who knows what you're going to get right. And so, and especially with turnover right Like you may have a great person, they move on to another opportunity. Now the entire like knowledge base of how food service should happen leaves with them. And so what I find is it's almost you have to start with the basics of well, what kind of training do you have in place? What is your menu program look like? What are you trying to accomplish with service standards serving people? And then from there we can then start adding the niceties of well, let's look at programs for resident engagement and programs for, like, memory care versus assisted living or independent living, and then kind of from there saying, all right, now let's look at food service as a revenue opportunity. So it's kind of starting at that baseline of helping them understand what they want with a food service program and then starting to build based on getting those things in place.
Speaker 1:So when you work with properties around 15 or less, are a lot of them growing or are they renovating or adding on what? What is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a great question, you know I have. You know, two of my bigger clients are in growth mode. So I started with one and they had two communities that were literally a mile apart and they have built, they've acquired, you know they are they're just looking at acquisition opportunities. You know they've got a pretty aggressive growth plan to go from those two. You know, by this time next year, hopefully, they have eight or 10 locations that they're working with.
Speaker 2:Another client of mine is their first community is a renovation, but they're also looking to make acquisitions. And so you know, right now in the space there, there's been a little bit of a lull in new development just because of the way the economics have worked around you know interest rates and construction costs. But these smaller operators are some of the most of the ones that I see are being really smart and strategic about they're creating a regional footprint. They're not trying to have, you know, 15 locations in five different states. You know both these clients are all within two or three hours of themselves with all of their locations and that's very smart and very strategic, right. There's a lot of lower overhead that comes with that and it allows us to, you know, be more strategic with the team as to how we work together.
Speaker 1:That's really, really interesting. I didn't even think about that. Does the regional, you know, having something more regional um effect, like the menu and what you know type of food goes out? Because have you found in different States everybody's kind of different on preferences?
Speaker 2:Oh for sure you know um with my prior uh company. You know we were in six different states, from Arizona all the way to Florida, and so what menus work in Arizona, didn't work in East Texas, didn't work in South Florida, right? And so there you're working on three or four different cycle menus and alternate menus and always available menus, because everybody has different preferences for those regions where you know the one operator I work with in florida, they're in florida, right, so we can um. The biggest difference there is we have one community that's has more of a, a jewish kosher like uh preferences um, but outside of that we're able to do menus that are much more similar in regionality and in ingredients and in profiles, because they're all within, like I said, you know two hours of each other, so the regionality is the same yeah, and just the standards.
Speaker 1:The health standards and um are similar. You don't have to learn different states and their laws. I mean, I can't imagine the complexity of that.
Speaker 2:No, it's nice to be able to pull everyone together on a Zoom call and do a training with everybody and cover regulatory stuff and food code items and food safety specifics Because, like you said, it's one state, it's all one set of rules and it makes it easy to do that training. Whereas larger footprint means, like you said, I got to have six different sets of regulations and I have to know the intricacies. Even something as simple as you know, one state requires hot holding temperatures to be 140, even though the food code says 135, right, little things like that. Like you, got to know the nuances when you're in a bigger footprint. So these regional operators that I'm working with really do have some advantages I think that these larger operators maybe don't have when it comes to those kinds of things think that these larger operators maybe don't have when it comes to those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:So what are the biggest challenges for these operators from the operations side? So you know, if you'd asked me that a year ago, I would have said staffing and labor. I really think that's starting to correct itself. I feel like people are more engaged. They're seeing the benefits of maybe working in senior living. Really, now I think the biggest costs are.
Speaker 2:The biggest challenges are food costs we're struggling with. You know, we've had this, these huge inflationary spikes over the last 24 months or so, and we're seeing some relief, but it's not coming all the way back down. And so operators are struggling with how much rent can I increase? By what percentages am I able to? How much can these residents actually take on? And all of these additional expenses, wages have increased, food costs have increased, so margins are shrinking. So what are the opportunities there? And so there's a lot of creativity with the way we're writing menus, and cross utilization is a key thing there that they need to hire really good, talented people who understand things like cooking from scratch or speed scratch, and that's where you're going to find a lot of cost savings. It's not going to be hiring cheap labor and finding convenience foods. It's really more of a reverse of I need talented people who understand how to manage the food and do food well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't even think about that. But as a property, you know you can't raise rent. You can't raise rent in the middle of the year. You know as a restaurant or a hotel or anybody in the hospitality industry, you can change your menu With you guys. It's not like that. You have to. That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one of those things where, if a chef or a director comes from the restaurant side of things and I've experienced this is that they don't understand. Okay, well, food costs have gone up. Well, we just need to charge more. Right, we got to hit our 28, 30, 32, 35% food cost. Well, that's not like you said. It's not how senior living works, like. You get a per resident day food cost anywhere from $7.50 to $10. Some higher end places are more, but you know that eight to nine 50 range is what most operators are looking at these days and even that can get tight, so it's a different way of thinking about it. But there's opportunities, if you're creative, to do a lot of things with your menu. But also, I think with the new shift in demographics that we're seeing, there's also opportunity for even looking at revenue opportunities with food service, where maybe five years ago people weren't thinking that way.
Speaker 1:So how are properties able to make you know revenue?
Speaker 2:So it really goes into kind of changing into what I call a restaurant mindset. Right, it's looking at what are ways that I can generate revenue. Can I create a catering program where residents are able to do family events? You know a lot of communities. One example for a catering event they have pools, you know, in these bigger buildings but they don't really get used outside of, like aquatics, exercise classes.
Speaker 2:So why not set up a program where you can have grandkids come in for a pool party and then cater and rent space and generate revenue that way? You know, do all part pricing for guests that come and visit. So instead of what senior living has always done is, oh, we're going to charge seven, 10, $12 per meal. Create an actual all a cart menu where, all right, well, maybe I just want a salad and soup and so I'm going to pay for that at four or $5, like I would a restaurant, you know. And then creating discount programs, selling gift cards to family members, you know a bar program, revenue for around beverages and cocktails and mocktails, you know. Those are all opportunities that can be layered on top of the the base meal program and the regulatory meal programs that will not only help generate additional revenues but also create a lot of more marketability for kind of the, the boomers that we're going to start seeing moving into communities here in the next 24 to 36 months.
Speaker 1:So what do you think is going to be the big difference in expectation from the boomers in the previous generation?
Speaker 2:It's the experience level right. The silent generation before them was very much a I guess frugal is a good way to describe them. If it was a quality product, there wasn't a lot of negative feedback. It's like you know you get what you get. If it's a good quality, then they're happy with it. Right, whereas boomers are more traveled, they have more of a culinary palette, they have more culinary experience, and so the expectation coming in is that this isn't just my three squares a day, it is. I'm coming here because I'm picking, partly for the lifestyle I'm coming here. I may have some assisted needs healthcare wise, but I still have this expectation of higher service levels, of variety, of choice, and so the operators that are on the front line, on the front edge of this, really get the understanding of creating concepts and creating menu variety and knowing that they've got to create an experience around what they're doing. Even if it is basic comfort food menu items, they still want an experience to go along with that.
Speaker 1:So I mean lots has changed right since you've started. And so what do you think is I mean, what do you expect to see in the future, like five to 10 years down the road, Like how will that change and how can these properties prepare for that?
Speaker 2:how they use spaces, how they design spaces. Can they convert a dining room that traditionally would be? You know where? I have just three meals, it doesn't change. Do they have little mini concepts inside of them? Do they have activity spaces that can be like a pop-up restaurant? What do they do around creating those experiences?
Speaker 2:And the other piece of it's going to be technology. Right, if you need to drive revenue, you can't do that on an Excel spreadsheet. You got to have the technology to capture it. You need to understand preferences and choices and things like allergies and dietary needs, and so you know. You see this in hospitality now with, like some of the hotel chains where they have the personalization, like they know what temperature you want your room, those kinds of things. And so I think there's going to need to be more technology integrated into communities to create these experiences and we just have to, I think, really truly remember that at the end of the day, it's an industry of people serving people and we cannot lose sight of having that personalized, elevated touch. So, customer service, more training on how to interact with people, is going to be key, because it can't be transactional. Senior living is always going to be relational in how we do things.
Speaker 1:I mean, you're serving people in their home yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So it's a tricky balance of their home and hospitality and I think that's where the industry is going to have to figure out that outside of their apartment needs to be maybe a little less homey and more experiencey, but then inside of their apartment needs to be maybe a little less homey and more experiencey, but then inside of their apartment they need to have access to all of those services just like they would currently in their you know, their physical homes.
Speaker 1:Now, so are you seeing, like the cafes, and you know the different, more concepts within the, in in the house, in the homes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of communities, even assisted living communities, are looking at how do I create all of these spaces so I can have that variety, because as someone ages in place, they're still going to have these expectations. So I have a client who just opened a senior living assisted living community and they have a cafe where we're going to put in a revenue generating bistro concept. They have a full service bar, they have their main dining room concept and so that's assisted living. Typically, you see this in independent living and so there are just going to be a need for that variety because it's not something that's going to be a market differentiator in five years. It's going to be a market expectation.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I mean that's so exciting. I think, like lots of opportunity to opportunity, um to, like you said, adapt, change with the times and um, and give the you know, our seniors, like the you know, a great experience. I mean that's what we do in our industry, right, like you said, is provide an experience. Um, food is fun, so, and that's a fun, you know what we do. So are there any other tips, as we wrap this up, that you'd like to share for our, for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would tell and this is kind of a selfish thing but I would tell those chefs and directors that are in restaurants and hotels to not necessarily look down on the senior living space as that kind of bland, skilled, nursing institutional opportunity. We need those hospitality trained, hospitality minded individuals to come into senior living. You know my background is in hotels. All of the really great regional directors, dining directors, corporate directors that I work with, that I have good relationships with, all have a background in hotels and restaurants and those are going to be the people that are going to have really great opportunities in senior living to not only get better work-life balance and create a good lifestyle for themselves but also help push this change in senior living that I think is coming and going to be needed and is going to be driven by those individuals.
Speaker 1:Is the quality of life different, like on the side, versus the hospitality? Just curious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say if you're working past eight or nine o'clock in the evenings in a community, then there's something wrong. Like you get great work-life balance in senior living and you still get to do all of the food things, all of the service things. You know you can create great menus, you can create great cocktail menus and beverage programs and customer service experiences, and so the chefs that I think are like, well, I want to stay in food but I'm kind of tired of the rat race of the commercial food service should definitely look at senior living because once you're in it, like, you make these personal connections and again it's becomes relational and not transactional and I think the quality of life immensely improves. You make these personal connections and again it becomes relational and not transactional and I think the quality of life immensely improves.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and Aaron has so many tips to share and he also has a podcast. So, aaron, would you mind sharing ways that people can reach out to you for your services?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, you can connect with us. Our website is trestlehospitalityconceptscom. The podcast is Tips from Trestle. You can find that anywhere you listen to podcasts. We have a lot of great conversations and really just trying to bring in that elevated experience for senior living operators. And obviously you can connect with me on LinkedIn, twitter, x, instagram, all of the social media channels. We are all over the place and we'd love to connect and, you know, let you learn more about us and learn about how we can support you and your operations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, aaron, you're a wealth of knowledge and it's just. I'm really honored to have you on the podcast today and giving us some tips, and so we appreciate you guys joining in on this episode on Confessions Beyond the Food. See you next time. For more inspiration, follow our social media at W3Sales. Please like, comment and subscribe. You know all the things we would love to connect with you.