Café Services Opens State-of-the-Art Corporate Dining Facility at Kiva Systems, Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Amazon.com
On November 10, Café Services staged the grand opening of a new, full service corporate dining room at Kiva Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com in North Reading, Massachusetts. The corporate food services company serving Massachusetts and over 200 east coast locations worked closely with Kiva to design the state-of-the-art kitchen and café as a perk for employees, high tech professionals who’d benefit from a more convenient, quality lunch option.
Nearly 550 Kiva employees attended the grand opening, ringing up lunch sales that topped Café Services’ projections by about 30%.
“Lines have been out the door since we opened,” says Café Services District Manager, Greg Coy. “We’re getting great feedback on the variety, our prices and not surprisingly, the convenience.”
Kiva Systems is located in an office park with few restaurants nearby that appealed to the tastes of its hard-working, educated employees. It began talking to Café Services about designing a corporate dining operation with a full-service kitchen when it outgrew the lounge where employees congregated at café tables to eat their bag lunches.
“Employees were driving 10 to 15 minutes each way for lunch, which was cutting into productivity,” says Coy.
Contemporary, Upscale Design Enhances Existing Dining Space
Topping the list of requirements for the new corporate dining space was using the existing footprint. Café Services achieved this by designing a café floor plan that could accommodate a growing workforce. Offering a variety of hot and cold meal options and healthy choices was another.
Now in its third week, the Café Services corporate dining operation at Kiva serves about 400 employees a day in a modern, upscale space furnished in glass and stainless steel, and illuminated by natural light and hanging pendant lamps. The facility is fully outfitted with a hot grill for made-to-order entrees, full-service salad bar, pizza station, deli and dessert bar.
Health conscious diners can also choose from a variety of FitPicks™ selections, dietitian-designed menus made from whole foods that are rich in nutrients and moderate in saturated fat, calories and sodium.
Says Matt Stone, Café Services Director of Business Development, “We’re serving about double the number of people we projected we would. That’s great for business.”
I’ve been born and bred corporate dining and corporate catering from the very beginning of my career in the Silicon Valley and now, since 2001 in the Boston Metro Area. While working my way up through the ranks, all the experience has led up to my current position as the Corporate Executive Chef for Café Services, based out of Manchester, NH. I have the privilege to be able to utilize creativity, research and technology to dream up our company’s new culinary programs and custom menus for corporate cafeteria clients and bring them to life. Café Services supplies the resources to ensure success of our ever-evolving companywide culinary initiatives and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. Seeing the success of new programs in the field is my motivation. It’s a win win.