Clubhouse catering

[AMcC]

Following on from the thread about bar levies, how does your club operate the bar and catering facilities?

Do you have a separate company running the bar and the food or is everything run by the club ?

All our catering and bar services are run by the club. This means they pay all the staff etc meaning occasionally being overstaffed on quite / slow golf day. The set up is really good and the food is top notch, certainly happy to go there at any time and eat.

We are a members club and know some of you play at privately owned clubs

 

[anotherdouble]

Everything is in house and runs very well. Catering also makes a tidy profit

 

[shortgame]

Members club. In house bar & catering with a decent offering (choice / quality / value) but I've heard it runs at a (not insignificant) loss

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Proprietary club, catering done by wife of lease holder. Seems okay but doesn't float my boat. No idea if it makes money or not, we don't get to know.

Main club in the town is a members club and they franchise it out. Recently changed, been taken on by a local pub. Last lot had it working well and they only handed it back as their business plan took them elsewhere. They proved, here anyway, that it can be a success if the product is right and you have sufficient members.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Run by the club. I think - Chef on a retainer and contracted to supply members bar snacks, lunches etc. Other bigger non-regular events he does all the organising and sort additional kitchen and function room staffing - takes most of the profit he makes after paying for food and staff - with the club taking a margin.

Food is splendid and in the area golf circuit rather renowned - which is why for the 3rd yr running I will be putting on a Burns Supper and Ceilidh Dance at the club to raise funds for my church. Chef does a cracking three course meal for it; the club gets the bar takings; and gets free marketing of the club to all who come along. For the raffle one of the pros donates a 1hr lesson in the swing studio, and the club donates a four ball. All good stuff.

btw - if you live Surrey-Hants borders area and fancy coming along with a partner or group to a Burns Supper on 19th Jan - let me know .. Don't all rush mind

 

[patricks148]

poorly ....

 

[jim8flog]

Our club has franchised the catering and bar. We just take a percentage of the sales.

The franchisee is responsible for paying for all staff involved.

The franchisee also does some the stuff that the steward used to be responsible for eg locking up the club house and car park. They are supplied with accommodation.

 

[funkycoldmedina]

Does anybody know of any clubs that have standalone restaurants/café/bistro's in them that work alongside the golf club? I'm asking because it seems most catering facilities at clubs are lucky if they wash their face and it seems to me in this time of falling memberships there is an opportunity to have a more profitable revenue stream

 

[Jacko_G]

We're overseen by the LL GC. While we have a fairly small menu the food is very good quality and the price is on par with ,most other places/pubs. We can order food and drink on the 9th tee via a telephone and pop into the clubhouse after holing out on 9 and collect it to go.

 

[jim8flog]

Does anybody know of any clubs that have standalone restaurants/café/bistro's in them that work alongside the golf club? I'm asking because it seems most catering facilities at clubs are lucky if they wash their face and it seems to me in this time of falling memberships there is an opportunity to have a more profitable revenue stream

Our catering and bar facilities are open to all comers not just players.

The one 'downside' is that we cannot have a dress code for lounge bar/area. We used to have a reasonably relaxed dress code in the past but did require a reasonable standard eg nobody in dirty working clothes such a boiler suits and hobnail boots.

 

[duncan mackie]

We are private members

The bar is run by the club - we employ a steward who runs the bar

The catering is a franchise - used to be really good , changed a couple years back and they have been getting steadily worse

The good thing about Franchise is the financial risk is on the franchise. If it’s run by the club a lot of clubs don’t make much money if anything they run at an acceptable loss

Unfortunately it's only the short term financial risk that's on the franchise...if members leave and visitors choose to go somewhere else because of the catering and or pricing it's the club that suffers.

Not trying to be clever with this observation, it's pretty obvious stuff when thought about.

There's no golden model - as gets discussed frequently real success tends to come down the the individuals involved more than whether the club employs them as individuals or contracts them as a provider. You reference this with it was good but is getting worse!

 

[Grant85]

You would imagine that if it worth the while for a business to run catering and make a profit (even if revenue neutral for the club) then a well run club could manage it and retain the surplus.

My feeling is that all clubs need a general manager to make day to day decisions, manage staff and contracts. Clubs that still leave this to committee members / volunteers are destined to have problems or at least not maximise the most of their opportunity.

It is no way to run a club / business to have captains or committee members making day to day decisions who may only be a serving a year or two in their role and on,y able to commit a few hours a week to tasks.

Leave the committee up to organising the golf competitions, tinkering with course set up and running social events.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

The club run the bar (and employ the staff) and franchise the catering. The food is not great and expensive and they use to do good grub for supper club but they're even running that down to the ire of the members. I can't see them lasting 2019

 

[Orikoru]

My course is council run, so they had a catering company do the bar and kitchen. They have now let that contract expire so there is no bar or kitchen.

 

[Mel Smooth]

Our's is a privately owned club, and the clubhouse is pretty underwhelming given the nature of the facility (50 holes in total). However, the bar and area and kitchen is operated as an open facility welcoming any passing trade in. We get a few dog walkers dropping in for a drink, plus a few regular diners, and quite often there'll be a kids footgolf party going on.
The food is always spot on, and good value. I eat there quite a lot with the missus and young lad.

Another local course where I play franchises the food operation out and it's not very good. Shame as the clubhouse is lovely, and would thrive with a good chef at the back of it.

 

[AMcC]

Some interesting replies. There does seem to be a few disappointed with what is on offer. My opinion would be that as a whole, members would generally be very supportive of a well run bar and catering facility. Leading to money being made from it. As Grant mentioned it may be better to have a good general manager type person running the club the way the committee want, they would have experience hiring and firing people. Means more continuity for the staff, rather than a new Captain/ social convenes each year

 

[batchworth]

our course is part of Crown Golf, therefore all 'food' is ordered centrally and is cooked on the day by the 'microwave operator' who is on duty that day !!

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Does anybody know of any clubs that have standalone restaurants/café/bistro's in them that work alongside the golf club? I'm asking because it seems most catering facilities at clubs are lucky if they wash their face and it seems to me in this time of falling memberships there is an opportunity to have a more profitable revenue stream

While my club would clearly prefer to make a nice big profit out of our catering - that is not it's raison d'etre - it is there as a member service and so prices are kept down. So for instance I can get a decent coffee plus a sausage, bacon and egg roll for £4.50. Now for me that is good value. We could charge more - but the turnover would fall.

We make more money from the bar - and so keep a decent standard of food to encourage evening events. and we do pretty well on that front.

Also this summer we have just opened a halfway hut (never had one before). Again we are only looking to break even on it - and we are good with that since as well as being a member service - it is aimed at making the club an attractive proposition for prospective new members and societies.

 

[jim8flog]

Points I would make is that pre franchise allowing for staffing costs etc our bar made no profit whatsoever and we made no money from catering as that was the Stewards bunce.

Since going to a franchise we are guaranteed to make money from both.

From a members point of view the prices have gone up and he quantity in a portion has gone down. I know of 2 swindles that no longer drink and eat in the clubhouse after their game but they cannot be saving money on the drink as we are still below pub prices for members.

 

[williamalex1]

Members club with catering franchise basically pub grub, we recently change our licence and are now open to the general public for food and drink. Quite busy especially at this time of the year, which fairly helps the bar takings .
The rest of the year we have the usual functions/funerals, plus normal golfers snacks.
Problem is the franchisee decides when he opens, closed on Mondays , finishes early some days, takes holidays leaving the kitchen closed