Creative Dining Services builds contract dining on relationships, flexibility, and quality experiences in any setting
Contract dining is shifting as expectations vary across age groups, environments, and daily routines. Operators are no longer defined by scale alone; they are expected to deliver programs that adapt, reflect local preferences, and extend beyond traditional dining spaces.
Sandra Lee, President and Chief Executive Officer at Creative Dining Services, is leading the business at a point where those expectations are driving expansion into new sectors, pushing it beyond traditional models into something more flexible, data-led, and rooted in partnership.
“Creative Dining is a national contract catering, business-to-business food service organization. We serve colleges and universities, corporate dining, independent kindergarten through 12th grade, boarding schools, and even a nuclear power plant. We also serve senior living, and we’re getting ready to move more fully into senior living and healthcare space,” Sandra says.
Expanding scope
Operating across 16 US states, Creative Dining manages dining halls, retail concepts, and catering programs tailored to campuses, workplaces, and seasonal environments. Outlining the breadth of the companies work, Sandra notes: “In colleges and universities, we cover concessions, retail operations from licensed coffee concepts such as Peet’s to in-house concepts, and full dining hall operations.
“In corporate dining, we handle onsite catering, executive catering, and special events. Creative Dining also supports conferences and camps, with the capacity to serve up to 1000 student campers three meals a day. Across those settings, the approach remains consistent. Anything related to food, we do, and we do it with hospitality.”
Growth is now centered on senior living, a sector where dining carries emotional and social weight: a reason to congregate, not just eat. “We’re moving into senior living with a laser-like focus,” Sandra explains. Creative Dining has spent the past year building distribution, strengthening partnerships, and expanding its sales team.
“Seniors want more than a dining room. They want a restaurant experience, places to gather, a pub-style setting where they can have a burger or a glass of wine.” Convenience plays a big part in that picture too. “They want convenience, micro markets where they can grab snacks or groceries, alongside full-service dining.” The result is a model that extends dining beyond a single location, built around choice and routine.
Data and menus
Menu development is central to the operating model, with teams using data to track what diners actually want. Sandra adds: “We use advanced software and embrace AI, and our chefs understand nutrition across all age groups, from children to seniors to college students.”
The team runs a five-week rotating menu cycle, tracking what performs and replacing what does not. “We use AI to predict demand and cut waste so we’re not writing menus nobody wants. For example, down South, breakfast mostly means biscuits and sausage gravy. In the Midwest, it’s the omelet. We’ve also discovered that during certain weather patterns, broth soups outsell creamy ones. We flex with our diners.”
Customization carries into how individual meals are built. “People love to build bowls where you start with a base and then pick your protein, vegetables, and sauce,” Sandra points out. The same approach extends into dietary needs. “We’ve developed global bowls without the nine major allergens. They are a hit because people realize you can get customization and flavor without compromise.”
Leading culture
Sandra’s path to CEO began in the United States Army. She moved into food service, starting with a pizza delivery role after leaving the military. “It was the only job I could get at the time,” she recalls.
From there, she worked her way up through operations and management. “Before I knew it, I was preparing food and managing. That gave me the opportunity to go back and get my college education. Everything came together for this role, from restaurants and catering to business-to-business dining.”
That trajectory, from the ground up, shapes how she builds her teams today. “We believe in earned autonomy. We’re creative, but we also understand that nutrition matters and you must get the basics right.” When hiring for the team, the same approach applies. She looks for a particular kind of person. “You hire motivated people, ones who want to work in an environment where we’re cheering for each other.”
Sandra’s approach to accountability centers on celebrating the standard rather than policing it. In practice, that means shifting how performance is recognized. “It’s saying, ‘What a great job you’ve done. Look, everybody, this is the standard. This person has exceeded that standard.’”
One event tested everything, and the team delivered. “The entire roof of a dining hall crashed in.” The team pivoted to mobile kitchens. “For 18 months, we served food in a tent with 18-wheelers: one for hot prep, one for cold prep, and one for dish,” Sandra remembers. During that time, “the team turned out some of the best food ever. That is the kind of grit they have. If there’s a crisis, they run toward it.”
It’s a culture that goes back to the company’s origins. “It all started with relationships,” Sandra recounts – the business was founded by two universities seeking a different approach to foodservice, a principle it has never moved away from. “That’s why we’re able to customize and flex.”
Evaluating new contracts links back to the founding principles of alignment. Sandra elaborates, “We’re nimble, we’re small, and we’re about the relationship. We listen, learn, and build programs around culture.”
Next steps
“We want to be 30 percent larger and grow from 16 states to 22. Our strategy is to grow near where we are so that we can support expansion,” Sandra confirms. The near-term priority is a clean run of openings. “Over the next few months, we’ll deliver flawless openings across independent grade schools, boarding schools, and colleges as students return, running parallel to senior living expansion,” she concludes.
After a career that began with a pizza delivery job, Sandra now leads a company that was founded on relationships and still runs on them: one meal, one team, one honest conversation at a time.