Cafeteria for Night Shift

[TylerTXRN]

I need some information from you guys about what hours, foods, etc that your cafeteria is open for the night shift. We are trying to start to provide some sort of food services (besides vending machines) and need some general information from others. Our hospital is about 350 beds.

Any suggestions and feedback are very much appreciated!!!!:heartbeat

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

Cafeteria is open until 2:30 am with a limited selection. Typically a salad bar, grill, and a nightly special of some sort.

[ilstu99]

College town - everywhere delivers until 4AM. In the building, the ED stocks a big rolling cooler with sandwiches and snacks and such from 8PM to 6AM. Cafeteria is open from 6am to 8pm, but "meals" are only served at peak times.

[WildcatFanRN, BSN, RN]

The last place I worked that actually had the cafeteria open for night shift was open from 1a to 3a and served a limited menu of what was for dinner and grill items such as hamburgers and hot dogs. They also had pre-made salads. However the prices were not friendly even with our employee discount. Salad cost $6 and if you got a drink too.... If the food is good and the prices reasonable then you will get no complaints from patients, family or staff.

[nurseshepherd]

Kudos for your efforts! Our 300 bed hospital cafeteria closes at 6pm but our Hospital Auxillary runs a snack shop (manned by volunteers) in the lobby that stays open until around 0100. We also have a microwave and toaster over in our nurse's lounge so we can bring food from home or a lovely frozen entree. Have worked in smaller facility that only offered meals to employees and visitors at lunch and supper, very limited services.

[Jdl2002]

Our hospital is 393 beds. The cafeteria is open until 2 AM Mon-Fri, but closes at 7 PM on Sat and Sun. Not sure what time they open in the mornings. Every unit has a kitchenette with a refrigerator and a microwave, so it easy to heat up something brought from home.

[ILuvNewBabies!]

The cafeteria in my hospital opens during every night shift from 2am-3am, even on holidays. During Christmas, the hospital actually has a really big dinner during that time for night shift staff. They usually offer deli sandwiches and pre-made salads but you can get hot food off of the grill. They also prepare some sort of meal of the night offering ie pasta, baked chicken breasts, vegetables, fries. We wish it would stay open longer but it is nice that our hospital offers this service.

[stalsrn]

I think my hospital has about 300 beds and the cafeteria is open from 0130-0330 for night shifters. They tried to take it away from us and make us use a "floating" cart that would travel to different areas throughout the hospital. "They" thought they were going to make it easier on us and have a cart available with sandwiches and cold food that we could access during the 0100-0200 hour. Only problem was the cart would only be available on certain floors for 15-20 minutes so if you missed it on one floor you would have to track them down somewhere else in the hospital. They also thought it would be convenient to only accept lunch cards, no cash, checks or credit. The catch was you had to buy your lunch card at the cafeteria during working hours, 0600-1800. Needless to say the cafeteria manager recieved about 100 e-mails from night shifters and quickly changed the

plan! We are back to regular hours in the cafeteria with our hot entree of the day, pizza, chicken strips, salad bar and usually two soups.

[NurseCard, ADN]

One of the reasons why I like where I work is that we do have cafeteria services at night. =) They are open from 01:30 am - 03:00 am. They have HOT, fresh food too which is very nice... not just cold sandwiches and chips and other junk. It's the first hospital I've worked in that has cafeteria at night.

[Mimi2RN, ASN, RN]

Our cafeteria is open from midnight until 2am.

I don't rely on the cafeteria food as it is sometimes gone by the time I make it downstairs (except for the boxed stuff, salads and sandwiches).

[uscstu4lfe]

i think ours is a 400 bed hospital... they open from 10pm until 1:30am for the night shifters

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

Our hospital has no service whatsoever. It is really a shame.

Mine either. Oh well, my home packed meals are more healthy and cheaper anyway!

[Kunzieo]

Hospital I worked at was a large, inner-city hospital

Caf. was open from 0030-0300 but the food was really terrible, because they served the "left-overs" from day/eve shifts.

There was always 1 or 2 casseroles that (we're pretty sure) comprised of whatever they had laying around the kitchen from that day

and 1 dish of mystery meat in brown sauce. No salad, soup or grill. They had 1 cooler of sandwiches, but they charged $4.50 per sandwich!

Our floor ordered out about twice a month (pizza or subs) and had a pot-luck once a week, which really fostered a spirit of team work (I think.) And was way tastier than the caf. food!