Mackinac Dining Room

Overpriced, undercooked food and poor service. The hospital has other options food, it would be best to use them. 2 slices of uncooked pizza, cheese bread, and a small soda = $ 14

The soup and salad bar are still the best bet here in my opinion. The salad bar has regularly been putting out fresh kale as one of the salad ingredients this past year (and I noticed that during the summer, it was kale that the hospital was growing in beds just outside of the windows on the far end of the dining room – the kale I had there earlier probably wasn’t home-​grown at Beaumont, but it was nice and fresh). The dining room also recently began offering smoothies. You have to go over to the dessert counter to order them, and there is something wrong in my mind with the idea of staring at a big, honkin’ piece of chocolate cake while I’m waiting for the woman to make my smoothie that I ordered in an attempt to eat a little more healthily! Still the woman behind the counter mixed my smootie to order (pomegranate blueberry smoothie had Pom juice, yogurt, frozen blueberries, ice… and you could order extra protein powder if you wished). This is a fairly new option, as the woman behind the counter… who was still having to consult her ingredient list for each drink… told me they’d been offering smoothies for about a month. It also appears that the sandwich to order counter in the deli section is open more hours, which is a good thing as I’ve seldom had a hot entrée over there that rose above the blandest institutional fare.

I loved the Mackinac Dining Room. Granted there is a captive audience — though there is a Papa Joes down the hall.
I made my own salad, the bar is huge. Then I turned the corner and saw a Middle Eastern section. Curious I took hummus, tabbouleh, a grape leaf, m’jadara, and garlic. All for $ 8.50(ish) which I thought was not bad. It was really 2 lunches.
Overall the salad bar was a salad bar — fresh and good. The Middle Eastern was super good. I was shocked. Even the grape leaf which is easy to goof up was packed with flavor.
Now I didn’t try the gummy mac-​n-​cheese like the other reviewers… though there were long lines of employees eating that garbage. But what I did have was very good.

The reason to eat here is because you work here. And that is a flimsy reason too. The cafeteria for Beaumont Royal Oak staff and visitors is disappointing for a 1000+ bed hospital. The food selection is a retread week are week with very few alterations. That would be fine of there was something to look forward to at this dump, but there isn’t. Some people go apeshit over Mac-​n-​cheese Friday, but it is an overlooked, gummy, processed cheese food mess. Vegetables on the line lack color, but that is probably due to all the water they take on as they sit waiting to be sold. The salad bar has very few toppings to choose from, and the dressing are predictable, fat-​laden regulars from a salad bar of the 70s. This place is summed up by using my go-​to smart ass description: the food is terrible, but at least it is expensive. They get 2 stars because of the Mr Ed’s cookies. The only thing crave-​able ion the joint. Do yourself a favor and eat at a local restaurant or in the atrium area where Papa Joe’s has some damn good soups.