MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The Diner’s Reef was judged Jan. 30-31, 2020, for the 2019 John L. Hennessy Award at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.
The Hennessy Trophy is named after a hotel and restaurant executive that led a group to improve military food service. The award has been presented for over 60 years to the dining facility team that presents the best food service program in the Air Force. It is based on the entire scope of an installation’s food service program.
“The Airmen are the most important part,” said Tech. Sgt. Dayne Wallace, a kitchen manager assigned to the 6th Force Support Squadron. “Their job is to provide fuel for the bodies so that service members can have their minds on the mission and not their stomachs.”
The competition is broken into three different phases: submission, assessment and selection, and an evaluation.
“After we submit an inspection form, the top bases are selected to go to the next step,” said 1st Lt. Natsuko Moden, the food operations officer in charge. “The entire award is based on the performance of our Airmen.”
The evaluation process, which is conducted by a four member team, can take up to two days. Evaluations look at kitchen operations, serving and dining operations training, personnel readiness and sanitation, and repair maintenance and management.
“Thanks to the hard work the Airmen put in day in and day out, making sure things like our production logs are accurate and temperature checks and waste logs are being done, we are a finalist for region one,” said Moden. “Their motivation to work and bring extremely high quality service into the dining facility has helped immensely.”
Each unit must exhibit excellence in management effectiveness, force readiness support, food quality, employee and customer relations, resource conservation, and training and safety awareness in order to be selected as the winner.
The Diner’s Reef dining facility is a 2015 Air Force level winner and 2018 Air Mobility Command level winner.