Restaurant Partnerships
Partnering with local restaurants can enhance your meal program by providing participants with more choice and flexibility, appealing to a new generation of seniors with diverse tastes and backgrounds. Review guidance examples and considerations for working with restaurants and examples of successful partnerships.
Quick Guides
- 20 Years & Counting: Connecticut Senior Dine Program’s Flexibility and Choice — Restaurant partnership uses tech to check in
- Go and Dine — New York café for takeout meals and vouchers
- Meals on Wheels People, Inc.’s “The Diner” and Its Social Distancing Pivot —“Social enterprise”
restaurant site - The Diner: Promising Practices From the Network — Example of pivoting to social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic
Guides
- Iowa Cafe Guide for Partners — Example restaurant partnership guide designed to help foodservice establishments partner with AAAs
- Guide to Working with Restaurants and Grocery Stores for Meals during COVID-19 — Guidance in partnering with food retailers to maintain competitiveness, provide high quality meals, and offer increased meal choice
- Senior Nutrition Programs Seeking to Work with Food Retailers — Partner with restaurants and grocery stores
Fact Sheets
- Quick Guide to Working with Restaurants and Grocery Stores — Five step infographic
Tools & Toolkits
- Senior Nutrition Programs: Restaurant Program Toolkit — Key features of restaurant programs, how to create them, and promising practices for implementation and sustainability in one kit from the Nutrition and Aging Resource Center
Presentations
- Mapping Your Partnership Assets — Meals of Love restaurant partnership in Florida
- Senior Dine — Meeting the Meal Needs of Seniors— Restaurant partnership meal site with swipe cards (video)
- Senior Lunch Bunch: A New Model for Group Dining — Restaurant partnership in South Carolina
In the News
- More than a Meal: Restaurant-based Programs Feed Seniors' Social Lives— AP U.S. News video on restaurant-based meals for aging Americans