Food at Country Clubs

[caniac6]

How important is the food at a club when considering joining, or staying. We have a new chef, and the food is not as good. 

[alittleoverpar]

Most clubs have a monthly food minimum, so you will be eating some of the food, unless you just consider it an expense of membership.  

[caniac6]

24 minutes ago, alittleoverpar said:

Most clubs have a monthly food minimum, so you will be eating some of the food, unless you just consider it an expense of membership.  

We have a $100 per month minimum, which is high for our area. Also, our course is being renovated, and has been closed since April, and will reopen in December. So, we are paying for a course we can’t play, and now, have to pay for food that isn’t as good as it used to be.

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:44 PM by caniac6

[DonatelloNobodie]

I cannot understand why clubs insist on having restaurants.  Most have mandatory minimum spending.  If the restaurants were good enough, there would be no need to force members to eat there.  If they are not good why have them?

[slocalifglfr]

If you have a new chef whose food isn't as good as the previous one, you'll probably have another new chef soon.

[YellowV1x]

Food would be a low priority tie-breaker for me.  Assuming I liked the golf course and membership, a decline in food quality wouldn't be enough to get me to change clubs.  I can spend $100 in drinks and snacks during rounds in a month to use up the minimum.  Tough in the short term to have to pay that during a renovation, but if you've already decided to stay through the renovation then it's just a cost of membership.

[WarEagleGolf]

We don't have a min, and the food is absolutely outstanding.  Most people eat there often, we go up for dinner as a fam, I occasionally stop by for lunch.  They have special dinners 5-6 times a year, and we never miss them.  Food at all the events is amazing.  Big holiday brunches, etc etc.  

 

And it's a golf only club.  Food is very important to the social aspect of the club, imo.  If our food sucked because of a new chef, it wouldn't be for long. 

 

I don't know how you go about fixing your situation,however quietly and privately (as long as others agree with you and would say the same) is typically the best path.  

 

Had a club with crap food once, the restaurant/bar was straight up empty 90% of the time.  Lots of staff turnover, as they didn't make much $$.  People just played then left.  My club now has people hanging around (post round or just for the heck of it) for hours.  Maybe 3 new people in 3 yrs.  

[third-times-a-charm]

CC food is rarely ever anything to write home about. Any chef worth their weight will have their own concepts and chef-ownering their own things and not having to cater to a generally geriatric country club membership.

 

IME CC food varies from pretty good to good aka "good as expected" but nothing like you would find at a hyped local restaurant.

 

There are obviously exceptions for some courses but thats the outliers and not the rule.

 

We have a $1200 yearly min here and luckily the food is in the good and always steadily good category. Although it has gotten massively more expensive ($40/plate entree) recently (2023+).

[Phreddy]

Good food can be the glue that keeps a membership together.  I've had great food and garbage.  But, clubs with good food have members who stick around and socialize longer than simply a beer or an Arnold Palmer.

[AdExec]

F**k my country club and their food minimum. It’s only $300 every quarter but it’s so mediocre it isn’t even worth it. Luckily it includes alcohol so it’s easy to hit the minimum regardless. 

[NJBigFish22]

My club doesn’t have food minimums, but if they did I would expect the food to be decent.  Our restaurant the food is average and the prices are high, so I don’t eat there.  Example I had a meeting with the GM and some other members, got a $3 flat coke and remembered why I don’t eat and drink there.

[AdExec]

We have a good burger, good tacos, and good nachos, everything else you could give up and never miss.

 

However, the whistlepig whiskey is only $8 per pour and they know how to top it off whenever needed. 

[Bonneville85308]

My wife and I aren't really frequent diner-outers, and when I was single, my dining out was mostly the happy hours at the trendy restaurants in town, not at the club. So the food quality or lack thereof was never a factor in any club membership decision I made, golf was it. One club I was a member at for almost 15 years was basically a food quality rollercoaster, chefs only stuck around for a couple years and food constantly went back and forth from barely edible to awesome and back again. At one point my wife basically said "I don't want to eat here again unless things improve", and after Tuesday evening league, a bunch of us members would regularly meet at a pizza shop near the club instead of eating at the club, it was that bad. The low point was when I saw a member buy $75 worth of cheese crackers, pretzels, and granola bars from the locker room attendant to use up his minimum instead of using it in the dining room. But then they fired that chef, got a new guy, and things turned around...for a couple years until he left. I think many clubs have a lot more local competition for their members' dining spend than they used to.

 

The $75-$100 monthly food minimums never really bothered me as I could meet that pretty easily with a bunch of post-round burgers/sandwiches and maybe one nicer dinner per month or a holiday buffet. And the clubs I've belonged to have been pretty reasonable about deferring the minimum to the next month if one is going to be out of town for an extended period and you ask for it.

 

The food at my current club (where I'm a national member but still have a food minimum) has become extremely overpriced for what it is in the last couple years - like $50 for a 8-ounce sirloin steak plus ala-carte sides (that used to be included) on the dinner menu that isn't any better than the $20 one at Texas Roadhouse. It's usually pretty empty for dinner except the last couple days of the month when people are trying to burn up their minimum, but they do get a good lunch crowd after morning golf.

Edited Thursday at 01:17 AM by Bonneville85308

[gato_plomo]

My club has really good food and a wide range of options from sandwiches to filet mignon dinners. 

 

To me the food is important because I like to eat at the club at least a few days a week. 

 

I can't say food would make me change, but if the food was significantly worse it might make me at least see what's out there

[Abh159]

Food probably isn't even in the top 5 criteria for me. I'd put the course, the people (other members and staff), clubhouse, pace of play, and range/practice area all above food.

 

The food at my club is good enough in my opinion. I'll eat lunch and/or breakfast out there occasionally when I'm playing, but it's not someplace I'm going to go just to eat. I also live about 25 minutes away so it's not exactly convenient to just pop by for lunch.

 

My club doesn't have a food minimum, but if we did I would expect a higher quality of food.

[me05501]

I tend feel sorry for the "new chef," whoever he/she may be.

 

Most clubs are run by a board of members with zero hospitality experience. They want members to get a premium experience but they don't want costs to increase. And it seems like they are quick with the hook when the new chef doesn't magically make all their dreams come true. 

 

I played at a private club yesterday and had a chat with the member about their dining room business.

 

He said one big issue is that all the Friday/Saturday night diners want their reservations at the exact same time. They all want to sit down at 7pm and have food on the table by 7:30pm. The kitchen doesn't know what the diners are going to order so pre-prep is hard. Some diners are going to end up disappointed because the table behind them got their food ten minutes before they did or got the last available serving of the nightly special. The member at each table probably feels some pressure for his guests to have an elevated experience which can lead to him being harder on the staff than he might be at a restaurant. 

 

Honestly it's a toxic stew and anyone in the food service business knows to avoid it. You end up with people who find the automatic gratuity and tip sharing to be preferable to earning a high level of tips in a busy restaurant with happier customers and faster table turn. 

 

This is why so many clubs end up serving from a buffet line. It solves a ton of issues even if it does lead to a bit more food waste at the end of the night. 

 

[caniac6]

4 minutes ago, me05501 said:

I tend feel sorry for the "new chef," whoever he/she may be.

 

Most clubs are run by a board of members with zero hospitality experience. They want members to get a premium experience but they don't want costs to increase. And it seems like they are quick with the hook when the new chef doesn't magically make all their dreams come true. 

 

I played at a private club yesterday and had a chat with the member about their dining room business.

 

He said one big issue is that all the Friday/Saturday night diners want their reservations at the exact same time. They all want to sit down at 7pm and have food on the table by 7:30pm. The kitchen doesn't know what the diners are going to order so pre-prep is hard. Some diners are going to end up disappointed because the table behind them got their food ten minutes before they did or got the last available serving of the nightly special. The member at each table probably feels some pressure for his guests to have an elevated experience which can lead to him being harder on the staff than he might be at a restaurant. 

 

Honestly it's a toxic stew and anyone in the food service business knows to avoid it. You end up with people who find the automatic gratuity and tip sharing to be preferable to earning a high level of tips in a busy restaurant with happier customers and faster table turn. 

 

This is why so many clubs end up serving from a buffet line. It solves a ton of issues even if it does lead to a bit more food waste at the end of the night. 

 

Our club has a board of one- the owner. The owner also owns restaurants. We always eat early, so there is no problem with service. I’ve found the atmosphere at the club more relaxed than a restaurant, so if it takes a bit longer, we don’t really care. We tend to avoid the buffets. The prices are usually more than the food we can eat. The value isn’t there. Our problem with the new chef is the food. He’s been here a couple weeks, and the specials have been less than impressive. You would think a new guy would want to hit it out of the park. 

[knock it close]

Could be worse, last year I believe, the new chef at the predominately Jewish golf club in the city was going to serve pork shoulder for the member opening dinner. 

[JJFWebster]

We have a good chef but the food is not what attracts me to a club. I go over my food and beverage minimum just at the snack shacks. If the chef wasn't great I would eat fewer dinners there. I joined for the golf and I want the highest standard of golf course I can find.

[smashdn]

On 6/26/2024 at 5:33 PM, DonatelloNobodie said:

I cannot understand why clubs insist on having restaurants.  Most have mandatory minimum spending.  If the restaurants were good enough, there would be no need to force members to eat there.  If they are not good why have them?

 

If you are running a restaurant you have a whole city, county or maybe even a bit more to pull people from to eat there.  At a private club you have however many members you have and a few guests.  I would think the volume and therefore discounts via economy of scale is lost.  Also equipment.  A freezer or fryer or oven costs a requisite amount of money no matter how many people you are serving (obviously larger kitchen can have larger, more expensive equipment).

 

We have a $30 min, alcohol not included.  During summer it is easy to get the min just by myself.  During winter my wife and I make it a point to eat dinner out there every so often.  

 

The men's group will also host card games or basketball or football watch parties in the grille room.  That gets people in there and eating when the weather is not conducive (or daylight conducive) for playing.

[doctor220]

On 6/26/2024 at 6:33 PM, DonatelloNobodie said:

I cannot understand why clubs insist on having restaurants.  Most have mandatory minimum spending.  If the restaurants were good enough, there would be no need to force members to eat there.  If they are not good why have them?

Bc by definition no club would have a restaurant then or it would be equivalent to a burger/snack shack. Which is fine if that’s what you want. 
 

it takes money to run stuff and staff people. Using a highly labile pricing model like that would make running a club restaurant impossible , hence why literally any place besides entry level clubs will have f&b mins 

[david.c.w]

Members generally put too high a standard on club food.  Once there is a poor meal or service, members have a target on the staff, the chef, the food, or the price.  The complaints are often well founded, but many members walk into their grille looking for something to complain about.

 

Had dinner with a couple a few weeks ago and the husband spent 10 minutes vigorously complaining about the lighting, as it was too bright for his taste.  It was 7:00 in the middle of June and we were sitting in a corner with windows on 2 sides of us.  Of course it was bright.  Chill man.

 

[Bonneville85308]

I've heard of some clubs using poor/declining clubhouse restaurant sales as the impetus to change the dress code to allow jeans to be worn in the clubhouse. The reasoning often given is that members wouldn't make last minute decisions to drop by the club to eat if they were wearing jeans and knew they'd not be allowed to wear them in the clubhouse. Curious if anyone had experience with this actually increasing sales (or at least how busy the club restaurant seemed) or if it just resulted in the same people coming and spending the same money but just wearing jeans instead of non-jeans. Personally, I don't care what kind of pants someone wears in the clubhouse, many peoples' jeans are more tasteful/upscale looking than 85 year old Clyde in his circa 1984 Sansabelt slacks.

[Abh159]

17 minutes ago, Bonneville85308 said:

I've heard of some clubs using poor/declining clubhouse restaurant sales as the impetus to change the dress code to allow jeans to be worn in the clubhouse. The reasoning often given is that members wouldn't make last minute decisions to drop by the club to eat if they were wearing jeans and knew they'd not be allowed to wear them in the clubhouse. Curious if anyone had experience with this actually increasing sales (or at least how busy the club restaurant seemed) or if it just resulted in the same people coming and spending the same money but just wearing jeans instead of non-jeans. Personally, I don't care what kind of pants someone wears in the clubhouse, many peoples' jeans are more tasteful/upscale looking than 85 year old Clyde in his circa 1984 Sansabelt slacks.

 

At the end of the day the people who are going to spend money and eat at the club regularly are going to do so regardless of dress code, and those who do not aren't going to do a 180 and totally change their habits. I wouldn't see this sort of change making a significant impact on a bottom line. 

 

It's not uncommon for there to be a somewhat strict dress code for the main dining area (slacks, sport coat, etc.), but even at upscale clubs there is typically at least one section were the dress code is more relaxed. Usually a separate bar/grill area that serves the same food you can get in the main dining room.

 

At least all of the private clubs where I've ever been a member (or played as a guest) had this sort of system in place.

[Pepperturbo]

On 6/26/2024 at 1:11 PM, caniac6 said:

How important is the food at a club when considering joining, or staying. We have a new chef, and the food is not as good. 

IME importance has to do with the level of club and how much you're willing to pay for better food.  Many people want their club costs as low as possible, yet like certain services, such as food.  At my last two clubs, quality food was important because members like eating at the club; I was one.  

 

Measuring a chef's skill has everything to do with the membership's palette and wallet.  We had a "chef" issue at one club.  He wasn't as good as many members wanted.  A high-end chef costs more in salary, and thus the cost could affect dues or F&B min.  

[DArnie]

4 hours ago, david.c.w said:

Members generally put too high a standard on club food.  Once there is a poor meal or service, members have a target on the staff, the chef, the food, or the price.  The complaints are often well founded, but many members walk into their grille looking for something to complain about.

 

Had dinner with a couple a few weeks ago and the husband spent 10 minutes vigorously complaining about the lighting, as it was too bright for his taste.  It was 7:00 in the middle of June and we were sitting in a corner with windows on 2 sides of us.  Of course it was bright.  Chill man.

 

Yes, it seems that Club members always like to complain, some deserved but most not. Having been a GM at a private CC, I've basically have heard it all from members. Restaurant services being at the top as you hear that from the wives also, not just the men, which many women don't play golf so that is how they get their complaints in. 😁At most of the Clubs I have worked at it seems there is a handful or two of just plain out complainers. Miserable people.  You kind of hate to see them walk thru the door. On the other hand, most Members are there to enjoy themselves and make the others almost bearable. 

Just retired last month from my Head Pro position and I have no inclination to become a member at a club. Maybe later. LOL.

[caniac6]

1 hour ago, DArnie said:

Yes, it seems that Club members always like to complain, some deserved but most not. Having been a GM at a private CC, I've basically have heard it all from members. Restaurant services being at the top as you hear that from the wives also, not just the men, which many women don't play golf so that is how they get their complaints in. 😁At most of the Clubs I have worked at it seems there is a handful or two of just plain out complainers. Miserable people.  You kind of hate to see them walk thru the door. On the other hand, most Members are there to enjoy themselves and make the others almost bearable. 

Just retired last month from my Head Pro position and I have no inclination to become a member at a club. Maybe later. LOL.

Tho only thing I have ever complained about is the condition of a bathroom on the course. Our staff is so nice, even when things are a bit wonky, I never say anything. I just roll with it. We are not a fancy club, so we don’t have a big menu. The weekly specials are the big incentive to come out for dinner. Our old chef usually had a beef, pork or chicken, and a seafood item as a special. It wasn’t quite comfort food, but it was close. The new, in his first week, had sandwiches, or variations as his specials. This week, three out of four were vegetarian items, and not very appealing at that. I’m going to see what he has next week, but if he doesn’t pick it up, I’m going to say something to the GM. 

[mshills]

Our food minimum is $125 and excludes alcohol, but I live 24 miles from the club, and I’m NOT driving that just to have dinner. Between getting a sandwich here and there, and the missus having lunch after her Thursday game, we usually get close to meeting the minimum. The food is all right, not great, not terrible.

 

Overall, food would only be important for me if I lived close to the club, but my expectations are realistic. You aren’t going to get anything really unique or innovative at a golf club. 

[McMunch]

I treat Club food like I treat food at any stadium, ballpark or arena...Its not their first business (and really shouldn't be) so you're lucky if its decent.

[golfortennis]

This is a tough one for me.  Up until this year we allowed guest fees to count toward the minimums, which to me, is a good thing because ultimately you want people to spend money at the club, but the big difference is food has a cost of goods, plus labor, so you're maybe netting out 40%.  A guest fee on the other hand, what is the marginal cost of another player playing golf?  I'll be overly conservative and call it 1% cost.  It's all gravy.

 

But of course, departments have targets and everyone has their own turf(no pun intended) to defend.  What I did appreciate is that this year we raised so that if you are a single member, your minimum is x, but if you have a secondary member, your minimum is x + y.  I'm not a drinker, so it's tougher for me to reach the minimum, so it always irked me that a couple had a much easier time reaching minimums.  I'm also a pretty plain eater.  Chefs would love me because I don't really ask much in the way of fancy, but they would hate me because I'm not interested in anything that gets them instagram likes.