Harbor Retirement Associates has spent the last decade changing dining operations to focus on farm-fresh fare in an effort to better appeal to incoming older adults.
Vero Beach, Florida-based HRA is focusing on farm-to-table foods and scratch cooking in an effort to “disrupt” the way senior living operators feed and nourish residents while promoting more sustainable practices, according to Vice President of Hospitality Anthony Polito. The company’s philosophy is that residents of tomorrow desire a seamless, restaurant-quality experience instead of batch cooking and cafeteria-style meals.
“From the recipes themselves, the regional and seasonal menus and the layout and the way the menus read, we really want to create that restaurant experience for our residents and guests,” Polito told Senior Housing News.
The baby boomers are much more concerned with where their food originates than their predecessors were, Polito said. Now perhaps more than ever, residents crave farm-to-table meals with fresh ingredients.
Although HRA and Polito have evolved the company’s dining offerings in recent years, they want to build on those efforts and continue to break the mold for new incoming residents with new tech and other hospitality-forward practices.
From ‘institutional’ to inviting
Although HRA’s food program today centers on restaurant-quality fare, that was not always the case.
Prior to 2013, HRA’s residents dined purely for sustenance, with one option for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“There was no pushing of the envelope,” Polito said. “It was much more institutional.”
More than a decade ago, operators were still anticipating the wants and needs of the baby boomer generation. In 2026, the first boomers turn 80 – and as they age into senior housing, they are bringing with them new preferences for more hospitality-focused dining.
More than a decade ago, HRA began working with dieticians to make its dining menus both nutritious and palatable with a variety of choices. The company has not slowed its evolution in dining since. Over the years, residents have become more adventurous with their palettes and are coming in with a desire to try new things.
HRA is meeting those tastes by packing its communities with more dining options for residents, from full-service bars to fine-dining venues serving fruits, vegetables and herbs culled from local farms and onsite community gardens.
Polito, a restauranteur who traces his culinary roots to helping his grandmother make tomato sauce on Sundays at age seven, doesn’t want HRA’s dining venues to merely resemble restaurants.
“There’s no point really calling it restaurant-style,” Polito said. “We want to operate restaurants within our communities. And that’s exactly what we do.”
HRA has developed seven dining concepts for its communities, including a bistro venue called Counter-Offer to a reservation-only private setting called Zest. The company also has a dedicated memory care dining program referred to as Bridges, which “embodies the belief that food is more than just sustenance; it’s a bridge to the soul,” according to HRA’s website.
“Each venue is distinctly different,” Polito said. “When you sit and dine at one of these restaurants … [the] first impression would be, ‘I’m just dining at a restaurant that just happens to live inside of one of our senior living communities.’”
HRA populates menus with food such as wild-caught seafood, fresh produce and locally sourced meats. According to its website, the company sources fruits and veggies, coffee and other fare from local food producers such as Tractor Beverage, Lipman Farms and Thrive Farmers.
That approach has helped the operator slash its raw food budget around 20% annually. Polito credits this to the culinary talent across the company and because everything is produced in-house, it cuts out production premiums from suppliers.
“There’s kind of a misconception that because we’re elevating all these items and ingredients that it’s going to it’s going to correlate to a large increase in goods and cost of goods, but it actually works in the opposite way because we’re getting very, very savvy professional chefs that know how to handle it and work with these products,” Polito said.
Residents and their families prefer restaurants like the ones HRA operates over the old way of senior living dining, according to Polito. HRA features its dining in marketing and advertises menus and ingredients that “speak to” incoming residents who desire more health-conscious sustainable fare,” he said.
Serving up new concepts
HRA is in the process of rolling out new concepts for its communities to keep the innovation wheel turning. For example, among the operator’s newest forthcoming offerings is The Cove, a bar concept that focuses on non alcoholic, botanical drinks and alcohol-free happy hours where many different kinds of residents can mingle.
The non-alcoholic drinks are made with ingredients that Polito said promote immune systems or reduce inflammation.
“It really speaks to our residents in our communities, but it also speaks to the younger generations that are looking for these kinds of alternatives to alcohol,” Polito said. “It’s something that I feel is very unique to us.”
Polito added he is also in the process of developing a dining program around ingredients thought to have positive effects on cognition, such as lionsmane mushroom coffees and food containing omega-3 fatty acids.
Looking ahead, Polito believes technology use and adoption will drive the company’s next chapter. The operator is updating and making changes to its point of sale system, which tracks how residents’ “dining dollars” are being spent.
“I think technology is going to play a huge part in really elevating the hospitality experience, but not only elevating but also creating efficiencies within our operation to be able to provide even more services, and an even higher level of service to our residents,” Polito said. “I think that’ll be the next thing that we really look toward.”
