Feasts For More Eyes

Today’s clubs need well-designed banquet space to meet growing demand for larger and more flexible events.

by Diana Mirel (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
July 2007
 

Summing It Up • Movable walls and multiple entryways provide flexibility to accommodate different sizes of groups at the same time. • A neutral color is more bride-friendly, but special architectural touches can take a room from bland to grand. • Have a plan for how to stay in the banquet business during a renovation.

Charlotte (N.C.) Harbor Yacht Club built a kitchen with multiple entry points for banquets.

Efficient and effective banquet space has become more critical to the success of any club operation. “Banquets are certainly the most profitable area of food and beverage that a club can do,” says James Petersen, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer of Sunset Ridge Country Club in Northfield, Ill. “You don’t have wasted labor and you don’t have wasted food costs. You know exactly how many people to plan for. It is certainly a more profitable area for us.”

But servicing banquets today also means being able to provide more versatile venues for special events. And that in turn requires more than fine linens and mood-inducing votives. To put their facilities in position to capture more banquet business, clubs now need to look at everything from kitchen design and pre-function space to color schemes and design details.

Multi-Purpose Space
Gone are the days of the large, cavernous ballroom. Multi-functional spaces that allow clubs to host everything from large weddings to private meetings are in high demand. “We have to make sure we not only give clubs the option to seat 250 people, but can also make the room feel intimate with just 45 or 50,” says a design expert. “You have to be able to bring the room in and try to keep all of the elements at a human scale.”

To do that, designers have some tricks up their sleeves. A simple flick of a light switch, for instance, can change the entire vibe. Chandeliers and wall sconces can be set brightly for casual daytime events, and dimly for elegant nighttime affairs. The placement of light fixtures can also make or break the mood. “You don’t want chandeliers 14 feet off the floor; you want them more engaged in what people are doing,” says a designer. “The ceilings may be high, but chandeliers should be situated 8 to 9 feet off the floor.”

Clubs can also change the size and shape of a banquet space with creative greenery. “A lot of clubs use planter boxes on casters that can be moved around,” the designer adds. “They can be four feet tall with plants across the top of them, and you can actually block off one end of the room by putting two planters side by side.”

Creating additional space is typically a top concern in banquet room renovations. Prior to its renovation, the 180-person dining room at Pelican Sound Golf & River Club in Estero, Fla., was too small to accommodate large weddings and tournaments. The club wanted to increase seating capacity by 25 to 35 percent, while maintaining the same building footprint.

This goal was accomplished by removing two existing walls at both ends of the dining room and replacing them with movable, wood- and glass-paneled doors that open up to the club’s private dining room and grill room on either side of the main dining room. By opening the walls, the club can now accommodate a 250-person event, and it has experienced a $35,000-$50,000 increase in sales in its first post-renovation year.

After renovating its banquet space to better accommodate multiple events, Sunset Ridge CC saw a 55 percent increase in revenues.

Sunset Ridge’s pre-function areas give people a place to comfortably congregate before the start of an event.

Divide and Conquer
Even more valuable than hosting larger events is serving multiple banquets at one time. Before its recent renovation two years ago, the former banquet room at Sunset Ridge CC was T-shaped, with a large rectangular room flanked by two smaller wings. “There was no access to and from the smaller wings without walking through the main room,” explains Petersen. “If we had one event in the room, we were done.”

The renovation changed the room into a large rectangular banquet space, with multiple entryways that can be divided into three separate rooms with air-walls. “Each of the rooms is different in size when we divide it, which gives us the flexibility to better match the room size to the group size,” says Petersen. “It is not unusual for us to now have two or three things going on at once.” This newfound versatility has increased the club’s special event appeal and boosted its bottom line. Banquet and event sales at Sunset Ridge went from $840,000 before the renovation to $1.3 million in the first fiscal period after completion—a 55 percent increase.

Increasing the size of a space alone, however, does not guarantee success. Well-appointed design details take the room to the next level. “You want the interior design of the banquet room to blend with the remainder of the club, but you also want it to be relatively neutral,” says a design firm executive. “People will be turned off by loud colors. When a bride doesn’t like the color of the banquet room, she won’t rent it.”

Of course, there is a fine line between neutral and bland. “Because it is a big room, it needs to have some strong architecture, and you can still use some color in the carpet or draperies,” the executive adds. “But make sure the walls are more neutral, so they become the backdrop for the event.”

While the banquet space at Phoenix’s Arizona Country Club functioned well, the club gutted and remodeled the room to increase its appeal. “We weren’t seeing the wedding and meeting business we knew we could bring in,” says Brooke Robar, Marketing and Membership Director. “It was a matter of aesthetics and bringing it up to date.” Now, along with new lighting, fixtures, carpeting, wall coverings and ceiling design, one of the biggest improvements is the updated color scheme. “In the past, it was mint green and pink,” says General Manager Tom Gibbs. “We made it tan and gold, so it’s neutral and more bride-friendly, and much more flexible.”

Traffic Control
Different entryways within the banquet room itself are crucial to smooth operations. “You have to know how to get people in and out of the room,” says a designer. “One of the worst things is to have service personnel crossing the path of guests. At best, it’s awkward; at worst, you’ll have a collision.”

In designing the space, clubs should work with designers to strategically evaluate the proximity of wait stations, bars and entryways for optimal workflow. And the banquet room’s surrounding areas are just as important as the space itself; one designer believes, in fact, that “the banquet room is almost secondary to everything around it.”
The kitchen requires especially careful planning. “Make sure you have a separate banquet line from the a la carte line, so you don’t have to shut down service for the banquet,” a designer says.

Prior to its renovation, Sunset Ridge’s a la carte service basically came to a halt when the staff plated a banquet. But, through the renovation, the kitchen went from 1,600 to 2,700 square feet, giving the club a big enough footprint to build a completely separate banquet area, complete with its own staging station and food storage space.

This is a better solution for most clubs than separate catering kitchens. “A second kitchen is terribly labor-intensive,” a designer notes. “If you do it right within one kitchen, you can make it work and save money.”

When Charlotte Harbor Yacht Club in Port Charlotte, Fla., rebuilt its clubhouse after it was destroyed by Hurricane Charlie in 2005, the new kitchen was built with banquets in mind. It has a rear line for banquets, additional food storage areas, a large service and staging station, and multiple entry points. “We can go out [from the kitchen] from three different areas, so we can hit all parts of the club at the same time,” says General Manager Robert Brown.

And because nothing puts a damper on an event as quickly as staff constantly opening doors to see if it’s time to serve the next stage—or just being visible as they hang out behind two-way windows, waiting for their cues—some clubs are putting one-way glass in entry doors, to let staff monitor activity while guests only see the room, reflected in all its new glory.

Before the Party
Because pre-function areas are also being seen as increasingly important to help kick off events properly, renovations are now giving more attention to providing adequate space and function for this purpose, too.

In its former facility, Pelican Sound didn’t have a place for groups to congregate prior to an event, creating an awkward situation. But today, the club’s remodeled lobby can also be used for that purpose. “The intent was to take it from a somewhat enclosed space and open the area up, creating enough space for a reception area prior to entering the main dining area,” says Forbes. The club sets buffet tables and temporary bars in the lobby during the cocktail hour, and then turns it into a dessert and after-dinner lounge. “It is a multi-use space and gets people around the club,” says Forbes. “It’s become one of the more popular spaces.”

Even as renovations are making these changes possible, though, clubs still don’t want to pass up lucrative event revenues during construction. So many have been resourceful about finding ways to stay in business, even during their most torn-up times.

While Sunset Ridge didn’t host formal banquets during construction, the club made good use of its pool as a gathering area. “We still did our big member-guest golf event, with all the [F&B] around the pool,” says Petersen. “The chef had to get a little creative with propane and gas grills.”

After Pelican Sound realized it had booked a few events prior to its renovation timetable, “We worked with designers and contractors to make sure we could meet those commitments,” says Forbes. “We designed temporary entrances and closed off areas where work was being done. And when we had functions, the contractor would postpone work for the day.”

 

Mixing Business and Pleasure photo courtesy of Pelican Sound GRC Pelican Sound Golf & River Club designed its club with two new “must-haves” that can both improve operations and increase marketability for corporate and social events. Audiovisual Equipment: To drum up more meeting business, the club equipped its private dining room with a drop-down screen and projector and concealed the AV equipment in armoires around the room. When people are dining, they cannot see the equipment, but the room can easily be turned into a fully-equipped meeting room. These changes have helped increased the club’s meeting business by 25 percent. Dance Floor: Rather than using a temporary dance floor, the club added a wall-to-wall built-in dance floor in its main dining room to save time, labor and storage space. The dance floor breaks up the space and adds a decorative appeal in the room.