Ashland’s cafeteria gets a makeover

Gone are the long communal tables and the chairs dating back to the 1980s. Now, the small cafe in the basement of Asante Ashland Community Hospital looks more like a modern bistro than a hospital cafeteria.

It also has a new name: The Bob Holbrook Café, in honor of the late donor who made the renovation possible.

Thanks to Holbrook’s contributions, the cafe sports sleek flooring, new tables and chairs and even couches and easy chairs for conversation. Renovations were delayed by COVID, but are now nearing completion. Besides the new furniture, the cafeteria has a fresh coat of paint, new lighting and new cabinetry and counters.

Asante cafeterias are still closed to visitors, but when the restrictions lift, the Maple Street Cafe once again will be a place where patients, visitors, hospital staff and employees from nearby APP clinics gather to eat and socialize.

Holbrook was a frequent donor to Ashland Community Hospital Foundation, which distributed funds for the cafe renovation. His contributions also helped pay for the remodel of the staff break rooms in the Family Birth Center, Emergency Department, Med/Surg Unit and the lab.

“The current cafeteria project is just the icing on the cake,” he said in a foundation blog post before his passing last month. “I feel a great sense of completion.”