Snacks That Aren't From Shacks

Even clubs and resorts can’t escape demands for “grab and go” fare—but your snack service can still be much more than a halfway-house effort.

by Sheryll Alexander (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
October 2005
 

Many factors are contributing to significant expansion in quick foodservice offerings at clubs and resorts around the country—both in terms of what’s being served, and how and where it’s being offered on the property.

Some believe it’s all part of keeping up with the nation’s fast food craze. Others think it’s because of a shift away from golf ’s image as an old-school, gentleman’s game, to a sport that’s more accessible for the general public and all family members.

Still another view is that club and resort owners are trying to attract more non golfers to their food and beverage outlets, and using expanded snack offerings to augment the pool and tennis portions of their properties.

Whatever the reasons, it’s clear that clubs and resorts are spending more time—and dollars— these days on creative ways to serve profitable, on-the go food and beverage items to their members and guests.

Snacks at club and resort properties aren’t limited anymore to just hot dogs, chips, and soda or beer served from humble shacks, “halfway” or “turn” houses, or rolling carts. At the same time that chefs are busy creating a wider variety of delicious, healthy, hold-in-your-hand menu items, club and resort owners are investing in new casual food and beverage rooms and buildings, including poolside bars and grilling gazebos.

Put it all together, and you have a quick-service renaissance that has spurred more sales and profits, better service, loads of choices, and a more enjoyable overall experience for club and resort snackers of all ages. Much More in a Name

Sometimes this trend is as plain and obvious as a new name on the door. Michael Mooney, General Manager and COO of the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club in Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., says his club's former "snack shack" was renovated in 2004 and renamed the Harborside Grill. "We were looking for a new name that would help signify a new approach to poolside services," he explains.

"It is now a full-fledged operation featuring salads, sandwiches, soft serve frozen custard, [non-alcoholic] beverages, and entrees, too," says Mooney, who adds that the club only spent about $25,000 to completely redo its kitchen to accommodate the expanded choices.

The club has always had a pick-up window, says Mooney, but it built a large table-service area adjacent to the swimming pool (and new grill) when the pool area was renovated. “So we now accommodate both levels of service at the Harborside Grill,” he says. “We took one window for member pick-up and there is another window next to it with a heat lamp, for server pick-up. This system seems to work well.”

To serve everything at the lightning-fast speed that more members are demanding, Mooney says much of the salad and ingredient preparation is done in the club's main kitchen. "This has become an advantage, (because) we can focus on just taking and filling orders," he explains. Fitting the Offer to the Space

Grosse Pointe’s original Snack Shack was a long, skinny building, with both a kitchen and a bar. “We could not change the footprint,” says Mooney. So designers rearranged the interior by removing the bar and relocating it to a nearby gazebo. The vacated bar space allowed for more refrigeration and a bigger prep/pickup space for the kitchen.

“We then structured the menu around the refrigeration and storage capacity,” says Mooney. Ready-to eat salads in high-end disposable containers are now stored in the grill’s refrigerators. “If a member wants to add chicken to a salad, we can simply cook the chicken breast, and when the chicken is ready, pull the salad and place the chicken on the salad,” he adds. “We are really speedy and can turn tables quickly.”

And while the Harborside Grill still serves hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken fingers and pizza for kids, the menu has now expanded to also include full fledged dinner specials, such as steaks, chops and salmon. "What used to be relatively quiet after 6:00 PM has now become a solid (part of the business) for us," says Mooney.

The club spent about $50,000 to convert the poolside gazebo into a bar, creating a popular new gathering place for adults in the summer months with an unprecedented view of Lake St. Clair. In fact, the gazebo bar crowd has been dubbed “the tribe” by members and staff.

All told, Mooney says, the upgraded gazebo bar and Harborside Grill operations realized about $150,000 in total sales last year. "And this year, we will exceed $200,000 in food and beverage sales," he adds.

In addition to great weather this year in the Detroit area, Mooney cites two main reasons for the consistently strong growth: members’ enjoyment of the expanded menu, and a better-trained service staff. Another contributing factor is that the club decided to extend grill hours by 60 minutes on weekend nights.

“We captured a lot of later meals where members who had been cruising in the evening [on the lake in their boats] were able to get to the service area and dine before we closed at 9:00 PM,” he says. Interestingly, the club also permits its supervisors to stay open later if business is booming. A Turn That Earns

Also in the Detroit area, a new “super shack” is working well for Tam-O-Shanter Country Club in West Bloomfield, Mich. Bashar Tobia, the club’s Dining Room Manager and Director of Service, says the “Tam” built its new restaurant on the golf course’s turn because this central location is also in close proximity to the pool and tennis courts, as well as to the men’s cart room and men’s and women’s locker rooms.

“With the heavy volume of golfers, the shack had to be located at the turn,” says Tobia—and a piece of unused land located at that point offered a perfect spot for the new super shack. “This design was very critical in the placement of the shack and does not disturb play for golf or tennis, which is very critical in any club,” he notes.

Now, members and their guests who come for a round of golf, tennis or a day at the pool walk down a paved path directly to the shack, bypassing the very proper clubhouse. “In essence, the shack was designed as a club within a club,” says Tobia. It’s also a timely and effective response to the increase in the club’s social memberships.

“This architectural design (perfectly) fit the needs and wants of the growing membership,” Tobia says. Along with serving cold cuts, hot dogs, burgers, tuna salad and chicken breast sandwiches, the shack also features wireless internet access, two flat-screen TVs, and telephone service. “Food and drinks are grab-and-go, or they can choose to take a seat indoors or outdoors,” Tobia reports. Windows to a New World

Taking a cue from fast-food restaurants, the Fairwood Golf & Country Club in Renton, Wash., is tearing down its 30-year-old snack shack to rebuild a day grill in its place. “The new design integrates two service windows,” says General Manager Mark Granberg.

So, the new Fairwood Golf & Country Club Day Grill will feature both a drive-through service window for golfers making the turn, and a walk-up service window, which faces the swimming pool deck perpendicular from the golfers’ window. “The same attendant just has to take a single step to move from one window to the other, giving us the biggest bang for our hospitality dollar,” says Granberg.

The design is the brainchild of an awardwinning member “who is a titan in the remodeling business,” says Granberg. And, he adds, the entire Day Grill will be built by the local community college construction management program, for only $300 in labor costs.

The club’s chef is also rebuilding the club’s snack menu, to include “anything that can be wrapped in a tortilla,” says Granberg. In addition to the traditional burgers, gourmet dogs, handcut fries and deli sandwiches, the Fairwood grill will offer Thai-marinated tenderloin skewers, cilantro chile lime marinated chicken breast skewers, chicken Caesar wraps, and peanut butter- stuffed deep fried jalapeno peppers (a local delicacy).

To add that essential deep fryer for the PB jalapenos and other fried foods, the grill was reclassified by the King County Health Department and is now subject to an entirely new set of codes. Previously, says Granberg, the building was considered a concession stand, but the fresh food preparation has required it to be reclassified as a “Class A Deli.”

“The new designation means a higher bar for both construction and health—one which the club is more than happy to meet to improve the experience for its members,” says Granberg. The deep fryer and cold sandwich prep station will make a big difference in enhancing that experience, he adds. “Our member survey was strongly in favor of offering deep-fried treats.”

The Fairwood Day Grill is even blending merchandise sales—swim goggles and golf balls— into the dining mix. “We will be using counter displays offered specially by the [golf ball] company, and they will be displayed right next to the fresh-baked cookies,” says Granberg. “We wanted them to blend in as a convenience item.”

To get members used to the new grill idea, the club’s golf shop staff is going to put special marks inside each golf ball box flap, entitling the lucky golfers to a free cookie or soft drink on the spot.

Let the Good Snacks Roll

Even the basic snacks-from-a-service-cart offer is changing with the times. The Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Ariz., offered a highly successful “Links & Lunch” special this summer. “It allowed golfers to present a coupon to Meritage (the resort’s restaurant nearest to the golf club) or at the beverage carts, in return for a free lunch,” says Marriott International’s Senior Golf Marketing Manager, Tom Enders. “The special has been very successful, resulting in more than 1,600 rounds from June through August.”

Beverage cart sales were brisk, too, as golfers could choose between one of three entrees, plus a soft drink and a bag of chips. If guests decided to upgrade their lunch at Meritage for something more expensive, they received a $5.50 credit. “This option has been very popular with our repeat guests,” says Enders.

The resort’s biggest success in beverage cart sales, however, was to add hot dog warmers to the cart. “We provide golfers with two hot sandwich choices in the morning [a giant breakfast burrito or egg sandwich],” says Enders. “In the afternoon we offer hot dogs and brats, along with cold sandwiches.”

For smaller clubs with not much capital, a roaming cart can be a boon for food and beverage sales. When money was tight for purchasing a new cart at Panther Creek Country Club in Springfield, Ill., Club Operations Manager Tim Straley says he contacted his club’s soft drink provider and talked them into purchasing a brand-new cart, “with all the bells and whistles.”

Panther Creek now has a classy, roomy cart that carries many more products for on-course sales. The cost to the soft drink distributor was almost $15,000, says Straley—“and the cost to me was signing an agreement to use their products[exclusively] in the club for seven years.”

Through the deal, Panther Creek gained much more than a new cart. “Our beverage cart sales increased almost 80 percent in the first year, due to the quantity and variety of products we could carry in this new cart,” says Straley. “Plus it looks great—and merchandising does sell product.” Each side of the cart has three merchandising areas, complete with shelves and plexiglass fronts for full product viewing.

Each side also has a hot/cold beverage container, which can be used for everything from coffee to iced tea to premixed alcoholic beverages.

Below the shelving areas are large bins to keep beverages stocked. There’s also a shelf in each of the storage compartments, to keep items such as sandwiches, cookies and candy bars. Consumable ice bins are located immediately behind these storage units.

This “merchandising unit” on wheels is completely covered by a canopy. Plus, says Straley, the beverage company emblazoned the cart with Panther Creek “paw” logo decals. “I think [the beverage company] looked at my overall purchases from them on an annual basis, and used that to determine the amount they would spend on the cart for me,” he says. Not Just A Snack, But an Event

Now that snacks have elevated status at many courses, they are being incorporated into both regular course design and special events, as a big part of the overall attraction.

California’s newest Nicklaus-designed course, Fresno’s Running Horse Golf & Country Club, has incorporated a “golfer’s pavilion” into its 220-acre course. Complete with misting machines for the summer heat and oversized fire pit for winter warmth, the pavilion’s “outdoor lounge” is approximately 40 feet in diameter, and constructed of custom fieldstone.

And at Quintero Golf & Country Club in Peoria, Ariz., special events now include oncourse grilling and food stations, which players pass on four different occasions.

“The fare is different at each location—generally grilled burgers, brats, dogs, and chicken breasts at one station, and a barbecue offering at the other, with a variety of salads and garnishes,” says Golf Director Tom Wilcox.

“Most of these events are shotgun starts, so the good fortune of our course's configuration means there’s a major food station about every five or six holes, so our players can choose when and what they want to eat,” Wilcox continues. “Member and guest reaction has been very positive to this program, and it adds a festive air to our major golf events.” C&RB

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summing It Up

 

• Clubs are responding to changing trends by upgrading their on-property snack service, both in terms of what’s offered and how and where it’s served.

• Remodeling and reimaging of traditional club “snack bars” are earning quick and significant returns, as members and guests respond to expanded menus and more appealing décor.

 

• Many snack venues are being redesigned to offer both indoor and outdoor seating options, or to expand service capabilities through walk-up and drive-up windows.

 

• Some clubs are even using the opportunity to provide snacks to make spot sales of frequently needed merchandise, like golf balls or swim goggles.

 

• Rolling cart service is also being upgraded, and some clubs are partnering with vendors to exchange exclusivity for vehicles and equipment.

 

• Expanded snack offers can also enhance the appeal of special events and outings.