Manna’s Bounty makes healthy, delicious meals for patients, the public

By Jay McKinney

Seared Colorado bass with a side of black radish panzanella and basil green goddess dressing sounds like a meal in a high-end New York City restaurant, not a suburban Castle Rock hospital. When visiting Manna’s Bounty (Manna for short), everything about the restaurant seems too good to be true.

A large kitchen staff, led by an award-winning chef, serves up innovative dishes at an unbeatable price. This menu, in addition to spacious private booths, a friendly wait staff and on-site vegetable gardens, makes Manna the best kept secret in town. And yes, this wonder of a restaurant is located in the lobby of Castle Rock Adventist Hospital.

It’s worth noting that you don’t have to be in the hospital or visiting anyone to dine at Manna. The restaurant is open to the public Monday to Saturday, and consistently draws crowds of guests for good reason.

While the ambiance and service may exceed expectations, the food keeps people coming back. A decked-out salad bar, homemade soups, mouthwatering appetizers, custom pizzas, perfectly grilled burgers and entrees packing rare, gourmet ingredients will leave guests struggling with difficult decisions. The good news is you can’t go wrong. Don’t fall in love with any one item: the menu is always in flux, with new dishes being added and old ones being retired every few months.

The man behind the operation is Chef Daniel Skay. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Skay moved to Colorado in 1985 for the skiing, and he never left. Since then, he worked in hotels and hospitals in Parker and Littleton before opening Manna’s Bounty.

When Skay was tasked with creating the restaurant for the Castle Rock Adventist Hospital, he was instructed to think outside the box. Drawing on his experience from hotels and restaurants, Skay came up with the concept of having one kitchen with two sides: one side making food for the hospital room service, the other side making food for the café. With both kitchen lines operating under one roof, they are able to maximize their productivity and equipment as they provide delicious meals to both hospital patients and the public.

“My goal was to nurture the health of the people of the community, to reach out proactively into the community,” Skay says. “We’re in the business of serving nutritious, healthy food. Come in to see us as a healthy alternative.”

This forward-thinking concept of keeping the community healthy aligned with the hospital’s mission statement.

The hospital administration approved of Skay’s vision and left him with the daunting task of coming up with a name. He says he wanted a catchy, short name that people could easily recognize and which would reflect the values of the hospital and the restaurant.

After days of mental turmoil, and after seeking the Lord’s help, Skay finally came up with the name Manna’s Bounty. He says he drew inspiration from the American Bounty, a restaurant at his alma mater, and Manna, which is a biblical reference to when Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt and they were starving, God provided Manna for them to eat. “It tied into my catch phrase of bringing God’s bounty to the table,” Skay says.

In bringing God’s bounty to the table, Skay and his executive chef Adam Freisem are constantly looking to create innovative dishes with exotic ingredients from around the world. They have worked together for nearly 13 years, and they experiment with daily specials and collaborative new menu items.

“We kind of look everywhere, not just America,” Skay says. “The world is our palate; what can we put there?” In this creative process, Skay says his culinary crew examines popular dishes and ingredients, while making sure they put their own twist on meals.

“Like our chicken and waffles, people know chicken and waffles, but we did it a little different, we kind of did an Asian twist on it,” he says. “(We do) Asian ingredients in the waffle, different sauce accompaniments on that, which makes it pretty unique.”

While these dishes are exciting and give restaurant guests a chance to broaden their horizons, Skay says it’s also great for the kitchen staff.

“If my kitchen crew is learning new things, trying new ingredients, it makes it more fun,” he says. “I want my cooks to be learning, to be growing, to be thinking, because if they’re thinking, it’s more exciting to come to work.”

As a self-proclaimed foodaholic, Skay thrives in the kitchen and inspires those around him.

“I go by the culinary composer,” he says with a smile. “I was the executive chef but now I’m the operations manager, but the food aspect is something that I thrive on and so I still keep my hands in there.”

In addition to creating innovative dishes, the crew also tries to pay attention to dietary needs, with many gluten-free and vegetarian options throughout the menu.

And although it may seem like Skay and the kitchen crew go out of their way to utilize ingredients from around the world, they have partnered with multiple local brands and try to source most of their food in Colorado. Some of the ingredients are so local they are grown in the vegetable gardens on the hospital property.

“For the most part, we try to keep everything local,” he says. “Colorado is finally starting to think outside the box of just meat and potatoes, and they’re sourcing better products.”

Skay is also enthusiastic about the creativity of chefs and entrepreneurs in Colorado. He praises Real Dill and Merfs Condiments as prime examples of local companies that are constantly creating new and interesting products.

As a state, Colorado is also starting to put a lot of emphasis on their grains and their local farm raised foods. he said.

“It’s kind of nice to see that we’re setting the pace for what hopefully the rest of the country will follow,” Skay says. For that, Coloradans should be proud to live in a state that cares about the quality of food and the health of the people.

Jay McKinney is a Colorado native who recently graduated from Metro State University of Denver with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He loves spending time outdoors, playing golf and hiking.