Milwaukee County has been serving up meals to older adults at senior centers and other sites for more than a half-century.
A few years ago, it started testing a new model, called Senior Dine Out.
It allows older adults to have affordable, culturally diverse meals — made from scratch — three days a week, at locally-owned restaurants.
Dine Out shows promise of nourishing both body and spirit in a state where many seniors aren’t getting enough socialization or enough to eat.
Forming new connections over a meal
On a gray Wednesday morning, customers sit in clusters inside Orenda Café in the Silver City neighborhood on Milwaukee’s south side. They're participants of Milwaukee County's Dine Out program.
Dwight Ivory is a program regular.
“I like it. Since day one almost, when we found out about it,” he says.
In fact, he enjoys checking out all of the senior meal options. “I tend to travel for all the sites,” Ivory says.
The retired firefighter is enjoying the company of Willie Rogers and Bud and Karin Steffens. They’ve become friends through the Senior Dine Out program. If someone doesn’t show up, they’re going to get a phone call.
“I’ve gotten a call. Said, 'Dwight you alright? Everything okay?' I like it. It really touches you that they care so much over the last couple of years to be concerned if you’re not here,” Ivory says.
Karin Steffen says despite initial trepidations, she and her husband have become regulars. Orenda is just five miles southeast from their home in Wauwatosa.
“Would I have come down here? Never! No I wouldn’t have. The south side is that side. But now I love it. You see things you otherwise wouldn’t see and you get to know,” Steffen says.
Low-cost meals
To participate in the program, you merely need to be 60 or older. Diners just show up and register on the spot. A $3 contribution is optional.
Milwaukee County pays Orenda Café $8 for each breakfast it serves. The money comes from a combination of state and federal dollars and the contributions from diners.
It’s not enough to cover the restaurant’s costs. But Orenda owner Leticia Munoz says she’s not in it for the money. Her philosophy is woven into her café’s name.
“Orenda, it’s a mystical force that empowers us to make a change, and that’s what we’re doing here, and you can feel it," Munoz says. "I love to see the faces of the seniors who come in the door and the joy and everything. It’s just wonderful. Giving them a place to meet others and talk to others, because otherwise there are many who live by themselves, alone."
Spotlighting minority-owned restaurants
Across town on a recent morning, Gaylyn Reske greets a diner at An Ox Cafe at 75th and West Hampton. It’s the newest Dine Out site and serves lunch from 11-1 every Thursday.
The third restaurant in the program is Daddy’s Soul Food & Grille on North 27th, off West Wells. It serves lunch Tuesdays.
Reske coordinates the Milwaukee County Aging and Disability Services senior dining program. She didn’t dream up the “seniors dine at the restaurant” idea.
Dane County created the first program in the country – called My Meal-My Way – in 2014.
Reske started puzzling out a Milwaukee County version during the Covid pandemic.
“I saw that these minority-owned restaurants were really struggling. And I also wanted to make sure that we're serving older adults who are needing food access, who are socially isolated, socioeconomically challenged,” Reske says.
With the help of community partners, Reske brought a few restaurants on board to prepare meals for seniors to eat at home. “At that time, we were still doing carryout. We were doing curbside pickup."
Then in 2024, the restaurants opened their doors to Senior Dine Out customers.
“I brought in over 2,000 brand new diners since the beginning of the program, people who have never touched one of our dining sites, primarily Black or African American older adults,” Reske says.
She wants to expand the scope of Dine Outs to draw more people from diverse neighborhoods.
“Population-wise, there’ s a large older adult southeast Asian population, but we’re just not serving them,” Reske says.
Bringing An Ox Cafe on board is a step toward changing that. It specializes in Lao and Thai cuisines.
“And then another goal of mine is to increase the Hispanic or Latino older adults that we serve,” Reske says.
As Dine Out soars, Reske has seen a decline in participation at traditional meal sites. “I'm not sure what the dynamics are, but this model's booming,” Reske says.
A successful model beyond Milwaukee County
Sara Koenig says this trend is playing out across the United States. She heads the Wisconsin Department of Health Services senior nutrition program.
Koenig says the neighborhood restaurant model, first launched in Dane County, is being replicated around Wisconsin, even in a small Barron County community.
“It's in the town of Haugen, which I think is 200 to 300 people. And they will get over 100 people from all sorts of surrounding communities that come to dine there,” Koenig says.
And it’s been picked up in other states, including Iowa and Ohio.
“Maryland is one that has a huge demand for that restaurant model right now,” she says.
Koenig says the greatest challenge is convincing older adults to take advantage of nutrition programs. She worries about seniors who are malnourished.
“It's estimated that half of older adults that get admitted to the hospital are at risk for malnutrition when they arrive,” Koenig says.
In Milwaukee County, Meals on Wheels, the Dine Out program and meals at senior centers combined serve less than 2% of people 60 and older.
“I just want to make clear, the congregate dining program and the home-delivered meal program do not have income limitations. I don't want people to feel like it's a handout or a program that is meant for someone else,” Koenig says. “These programs are here for all of us.”'
On Milwaukee’s northwest side, Sia Xiong gets it.
She was a home health nurse for 28 years specializing in senior care before she and her husband opened An Ox Cafe – the Senior Dine Out program’s most recent addition. Xiong serves recipes she grew up on, in the neighborhood she grew up in.
“We’ve gotten a lot of multicultural people trying our food and they love it. We still incorporate familiar food with what they’re accustomed to, but we twist a little bit on how we eat it at home. Like for example the fried rice – a lot of other restaurants, they don’t add the fresh cucumber, the fresh tomato, the fresh shredded carrot," Xiong says. "We do that because that how we eat at home."
Xiong’s philosophy: win over older adults one mouthful at a time.
Support for Seeking Solutions: Food Access in Milwaukee is provided by Jon E. Sorenson, Christine Symchych and Jim McNulty, Forage Kitchen, Capuchin Community Services and Antonia Foundation.
