Guest chefs prepare specialty lunches for Penobscot Bay Medical Center staff

ROCKPORT — Since March, nutrition services at Penobscot Bay Medical Center, in conjunction with local restaurants, have been offering special lunches and dinners to Pen-Bay staff in the cafe at the medical center.

Four restaurants, Guido’s and the Sail Loft, both of Rockport, Marcel’s at the Samoset, and Dos Amigos of Northport, lent chefs and their house specialties to the medical center’s nutrition services for a day.

“We’ve all had fun doing this. The guest chefs and our crew here,” said Dave Hartigen, director of nutrition services, “and our patrons get a great meal for very little money.”

Complete meals, prepared from the visiting restaurants’ recipes, cost $2.99 to $3.99. The cafe typically serves about 200 Pen-Bay staff members at each lunch and dinner.

The guest chef program will be suspended for July and August but Hartigen expects to resume the program in September. The restaurants each have supplied gift certificates worth $50 for a drawing held at the end of each visit, as well as the time and talents of a chef. One restaurant even brought along costumes for the Pen-Bay Cafe crew.