Sultan's Inn awaits Hennessy Award results

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Kali L. Gradishar
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Following receipt of the 2012 U.S. Air Forces in Europe Food Service Excellence Award, the Incirlik Sultan's Inn Dining Facility underwent evaluation March 1-2 in competition for the 2012 John L. Hennessy Award.

While the excellence award announced the Sultan's Inn as the finest at the major command level, winning the Hennessy Award would recognize the Sultan's Inn as the best in the Air Force. The award specifically identifies facilities that "exhibit sustained excellence in foodservice management, force readiness support, food quality, employee and customer relations, resource conservation, training, and safety," states the Hennessy Travelers Association Educational Foundation website.

"Once notified late last year that we won the 2012 USAFE Food Service Excellence Award we immediately began to prepare and focus on the Hennessy evaluation at the Air Force level," stated Andrew Pastula, Sultan's Inn manager. "Simply put, winning this awards means we're the best of the best for that particular year.

"For the Airmen of Incirlik, winning this award means they are dining in a top notch facility. For the dining facility staff, it means we are the best in our field above and beyond that of our peers for that year," he remarked.

Serving 48,000 meals per month to permanent party, temporary duty and transient Airmen and Soldiers, as well as distinguished visitors and other customers, the Sultan's Inn operates on a 14-day menu that includes a variety of popular and healthy choices.

It's the versatile dining menu that Pastula said makes Incirlik's dining facility unique.

"While we have to stay true to the core 14-day menu as prescribed by the Air Force, we are able to add to it from various other recipes. We do this to enhance the core menu and keep our customers interested in their program," noted Pastula. "A 14-day cycle can get old rather quickly; so by adding a fourth entrée each day, it expands the offerings. Then, every quarter or six months we change the local additions, as well, and you can see just how quickly the extra variety increases."

While the Sultan's Inn staff did prepare for the Hennessy Award evaluation, the importance of maintaining a superior facility was a daily effort.

"Although we did focus on those particular menu days (the evaluators would be present), it's about how we run the dining facility operation every day throughout the year," Pastula stated.

If selected as the 2012 Hennessy Award winner, representatives of the Sultan's Inn will attend the awards event held in Chicago in May. The dining facility would also receive a large trophy designating the facility and staff as providing the best food service in the Air Force.

"After winning this competition in 2010 it was the first time the Hennessy trophy had returned to USAFE after an absence of 16 years," Pastula remarked. "Just imagine the excitement it would generate and how proud we'd be to win it again only two years later."