Night Shifters: Does your hospital have cafeteria hours for night shift?

[AZO49008]

I work in a 420+ bed Level 1 Trauma Center teaching hospital, so don't start thinking this is some small community hospital as you're reading this. For YEARS, the cafeteria has been open from 1:30am until 3:30 am for staff. Being a large facility, a fair share of patient families staying the night also avail themselves to the services of the cafeteria.

Next week they are ending cafeteria service and will have vending machines with sandwiches and salads available. Needless to say everyone is in a tizzy over this. It's supposedly a cost-saving measure. If closing the cafeteria saves my job from being cut, I guess I'm not going to complain too much. But if they are cutting that deep, what's next certainly begs the question.

Our competitor hospital across town, also a Level 1 center, has a coffee shop AND a cafeteria open until 3 AM for their employees. There is a separate cafe in the Children's Hospital as well that is open until 3AM.

I'm just curious what night shifters working in similar sized facilities have available to them.

[mama_d, BSN, RN]

350+ level II hospital...

Cafeteria is open with a limited selection from 2300-0200. They've recently expanded the selection to include a "grill" where you can get fresh hot sandwiches etc. Or omelets.

They just opened it up at night about two years ago...it was a trial initially and they were shocked at the overwhelming response. Apparently not only do they think our pts sleep all night on nights, they also thought the employees also don't need to consume food.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

I think our hospital would make a killing if the little Starbucks was open from 0130-0330 as well. I would have loved coffee at that time when I worked nights!

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

250 bed, cafe open between 2am and 4am, on week nights the self serve bar is open and so is the grill. On weekends its usually just the self serve bar.

Depends on who is working for what is offered.

[3dayRN]

Our cafeteria and "corner shop" closes prior to night shift. We do have coffee available that is free to staff and families ( yay me, I hate coffee) we just recently got a sandwich machine. Previously only had snack machine and POP machine. Night shift always does without.

[SummitRN, BSN, RN]

170 beds... the cafeteria isn't even open on weekends, much less at night.

[belgarion]

Small rural facility. Cafeteria closes before night shift arrives. They do pack box lunches at no cost for the night shift to heat up in the microwave in the breakroom. Unfortunately the kitchen staff has not yet learned that there are some foods that are incompatible with microwaves. If we had to actually pay for it most of us wouldn't.

Other than that we have a couple of Coke machines and a snack machine that is home to the worlds oldest Kit Kat bar. Some times we can persuade someone to make a run to Sonic, DQ, or Allsups.

[Ashley_RN]

750 bed Level 1 Trauma Center also a teaching hospital... Cafeteria open 6am-1130pm, 2 other small food places open 6am-7pm but there's an Au Bon Pain open 24hrs. It can get prettyyyy expensive though. More incentive to pack a good ol' lunch from home :)

BONUS: we do have local pizza/sandwhich/salad places that deliver as late as 2am! Some of the places even deliver frozen yogurt!!

[ICUnurse1985]

300 bed community hospital, cafeteria open with grill, drinks, soup, salad bar and cold sandwiches and deserts until 0200. Scattered vending machines with candy/snacks/drinks on some units like our ED. Dayshift has a full service with hot, healthy full meal choices. If the administration worked night shift, we would have more variety and choices on our night shift menu with extended hours. Sorry to read, some facilitys don't have hot food at night or any food at all unless they bring it in from home. Definitely makes me appreciate the choices I do enjoy.

[SamHill]

40 Bed Hospital in BFE. Cafeteria opens at 7:30A closes at 1:30P. No sandwich or salad made for night shift. Vending machines with cokes, candy and chips are available but no change machine. If you don't have $1's, you are SOL. None of the restaurants in town deliver.

[smartin13]

I work in a level I trauma center in an inner city and on any given day the latest the cafeteria is open is 1900. Nothing open for overnight staff, we have vending machines but they don't really have food in them just regular vending machine junk.

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

(in the UK )

we have vending machines for out of hours - but they are freezer machines and have ready meals etc in them to microwave ... as well as sandwiches / salads in some machines and the usual snack / drink machines ...

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

I'm at a low-200s-bed community hospital just outside the city limits of a major city in the US. Our cafeteria closes before 1900 (when, I'm not certain) and doesn't open again until 0630. We have a vending machine with sandwiches and microwavable food, but it's all uniformly bland. If the vending machine sold the little bottles of tabasco sauce that come with MREs alongside their regular offerings, they'd probably make a killing.

At least the local pizza delivery chain is open 'til 0200 on weeknights and 0400 on weekends...