Are country clubs supposed to be this way??????

ok...this may seem like complaining but im realy looking for info and advice. I started as sous chef 1 year ago and took over as head chef 8 months ago after the last head chef walked out before friday night service. We are dealing with things like low membership which makes things like customers very low even for a friday night sometimes between 50-80 pp. ive suggested going public to bring in more customers, which we are looking into now after 8 months of suggesting it. yep things are getting that bad. we where running our lunch days mon-fri and dinner service tue,thur,fri, and sat. i was recently informed we are closing down lunch all together and tue night dinner till april. my question is this..are other clubs going through the same and is going public the answer to my prayers? i have many more question but i will post at a latter time.. thank you

Comment

You need to be a member of We Are Chefs to add comments!

Join We Are Chefs

Comment by Shawn Ferguson on January 16, 2010 at 4:08pm: Thank you for you advice. :) Im doing some of these things now. but so I dontmiss lead membership is about 300 and 80 on a friday is always like that no matter what season. So this is a good thing as far as January goes.

Comment by Neil DeVries on January 14, 2010 at 8:33pm: For the last 12 years I've worked for private golf clubs (3). They are all a little different but still mostly the same. Depending on the size of the club, an 80 cover night in January, might not be all that bad. The economy will turn around. Just keep putting out the best food that you can put out for a price that holds a value to your members. Don't ever push into the direction of going public. You have to let the members decide those things and support the decision. Try improving your in Club Marketing to the members to build revenue by using mass emails or "special menus" to drive business. Walk the dining room after service, shake hands and kiss babies & find out what the members truely want. be responsive to their requests and the sales will improve.

Comment by Paul Patterson on January 12, 2010 at 10:02am: The big question is not if you should go public, but why are you losing members. I work at a public golf course and we close for three months to keep the cost down. The local private country club lost over fifty members this year and I only know some of the reasons this has happened, like raising rate, assessments being added on top of monthly dues, tight money at home. Many factors. Maybe you need to gear down your menu to keep you food cost in line. Close down the lunch on your slowest days, offer lunches Tuesday thru Friday and dinner service Wednesday, Friday & Saturday nights. As you said about going public think of doing a Sunday brunch first to draw the public to the club. Do not kill off your lunch crowd all at once, they are your business people bringing friends and clients to the club. Winters are always slow at golf courses. Talk to some local chefs and get ideas to boost your sales, we are all in the same boat.