New Labette Health Cafe

Goes Green

PARSONS, Kan., Oct. 11, 2010– The Labette Health Café is now open, and nobody is happier about that than Linda Johnson, Labette Health Food and Nutrition operations manager. Johnson is especially proud that the new Café is environmentally friendly.

“We are encouraging everyone to use real dishes,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to discourage our customers from using Styrofoam, so those who want Styrofoam containers will be charged an additional 25 cents.  We keep a roll of film wrap for those who want to eat somewhere else in the hospital. We just ask employees to bring their dishes back to the Café,” she said. “If visitors want to eat with a patient, they can take their dishes upstairs, and just leave them on the dish cart to be brought back down to us.”

Johnson said that more and more hospitals are now going green, both to help the environment and because green initiatives save money.

“By going green, we’re saving the hospital money two ways because we’re not buying a lot of Styrofoam, and we’re not contributing a lot of Styrofoam to the trash bins,” Johnson said.

“We have also ordered reusable hot and cold tumblers for our employees. They will be able to purchase 16-ounce coffee containers and receive an incentive coupon good for six free drinks. The 24-ounce tumblers will come with a coupon good for eight free refills, and when the coupons are used up, they will still be able to refill both containers at a discount. The coupons and discounts should more than cover the cost of the containers,” she said.

In addition to its new green focus, the Café has several other new features, including a new salad bar that charges by the ounce, fountain drinks and a grill for hot items.

“We’ll be doing some new things. We’ll have daily specials, like omelets on Wednesdays or maybe burritos or yogurt on Thursdays. We also have recently added a new chef, Jennifer Blossom, who will be cooking during the week,” she said.

The new Café, which is one of the last elements of Labette Health’s recent $32 million expansion project, is located off the hospital’s main lobby. During the construction project, the hospital operated a “grab and go” café in a former conference room, but Johnson said she missed the opportunity to provide a full range of services.

“I can hardly believe that we’re finally open. We opened at 6:15 Monday morning, our normal time. Dr. Terry Coffey was our first customer, after a year and a half,” Johnson said.

Café hours are 6:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Vending machines operated by the Labette Health Auxiliary have been moved into the Café dining area, which is open around the clock. The Café also is now able to take debit and credit cards.

 New signage for the area should be installed in the near future.

Dr. Terry Coffey was the new Labette Health Cafe's first customer when it opened at 6:15 a.m. Oct. 11.

The Cafe is located right off the hospital's main entrance lobby.