I eat food. I drink beverages.
Therefore, I am qualified to oversee a Food and Drink operation.
In examining the operations of lots of clubs/resorts monthly, I find that one of the most inadequately operated, inconsistent areas of club/resort operations is Food and Drink. Especially in member owned environments, which are frequently supervised by a club board, people seem to think that due to the fact that they eat in restaurants, they in some way have some level of proficiency that enables them to make business choices about this crucial element of the club. The truth is that this is one of the most intricate departments in a club to manage, control, and produce a constant experience.
Let's ask a couple of concerns!
Is your Food and Beverage experience appropriate for what your members/guests want to have in your club/resort? Are you priced effectively, expensive, or too low? How do you understand? Are you tracking cover counts by day? By shift? By hour?
Are your food choices stuck in yesteryear, a great balance of old favorites and brand-new choices, or edgy? Is your menu designed for function or style? Do you change your menu quarterly, or a minimum of semi-annually to keep it fresh? Or is it changed every year or 2 and become a club dinosaur? What are your item requirements and part sizes? Is every product on your menu costed? What is your objective for a la carte food expense? Do you understand the contribution margin on every product on your menu?
What about your unique occasions. Are they actually special? Do they develop a buzz in the Club? Are they excitedly anticipated or the same thing that was done the last 10 years with nothing more than the year altered in the newsletter and marketing piece touting the event? Is your personnel challenged every quarter to try brand-new events? New cost points?
Got Value?
What about value added programming? It's happening every day in the hospitality industry. Chili's, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Flemings, Cody's Roadhouse, McDonalds, Quiznos, Train, and many other national franchises are actively configuring to keep people can be found in. Any wonder the success rate of franchises like it is over 90% while the success rate of separately owned dining establishments is about 10%?
What are you carrying out in your club to create a "WOW" for your members/guests in your Food and Drink offerings? Are you standing pat on your $32 filet and $28 sea bass questioning why you are doing so few covers? Or, are you trying new concepts that may provide "meal replacement" dining instead of just "special celebration" dining?
Something as simple as Happy Hour can create additional usage. Home cooking such as meatloaf, chicken pot pie, lasagna, or similar for" at $8 or $9 throughout the week are popular. Taco bars, pasta bars, burger night, half rate on bottles of home white wine, Fresh Fish Fridays or a Friday Fish Fry, a Chef's choice at an unique price on slower evenings, sushi nights, appetizers at a special price, entertainment, and numerous other concepts and events drive use, offer incremental profits, and keep the staff working. Are you explore brand-new occasions in your club/resort? Give it a shot. You'll be surprised at the buzz it creates.
The Experience
How is your dining room presented? With white tablecloths? No table linens? Placemats? Are you charging appropriately for the experience you are supplying?
How are your buffets provided? Elegantly with skirting, floral display screens, and glossy silver chafing dishes? Or rudimentary with little or no frills? Does it make good sense?
Do you have standards of operation to make sure the food and drink experience for your members/guests? Is every team member using a clean and pressed designated uniform? Exists a particular manner to present menus, serve, food, mixed drinks, and red wine? Are members called by name? Are specific actions of service in location?
Does the service personnel understand the structure of every item, sauce, and part size from the menu? Is training offered a minimum of monthly? Is your personnel offering suggestively?
The Technical Aspects
How often do you take a physical inventory? Exists "independence" in the inventory procedure to guarantee that the counts are accurate? Is inventory rates adjusted frequently to show the most recent cost the club is spending for all inventoried items or is the cost the club paid in 2015 still being utilized to determine inventory worth?
Do you follow this mantra when receiving and inventorying products?
If you buy it by the pound, weigh it. If you purchase it by the piece, count it. If you purchase it by ounce or length, measure it? Under no scenarios, accept it blindly.
I am astonished at how typically deliveries are accepted and signed for without even physically being in the exact same space as the items that were delivered not to mention examining the packing slip or invoice versus the items received. Delivery individuals become smart very quickly to those who hold them responsible and those who don't. A few pounds of missing steak here or a couple of bottles of missing out on liquor there costs a lot of money over a prolonged amount of time.
How much unusable food is stashed away in the freezer, often a chef's best friend, and continues to be counted each month during stock yet is basically worth little or absolutely nothing?
What does the organizational structure look like in your club's F&B operation? How are your managers compensated? Are they incented to produce a particular financial outcome, train the staff, and keep requirements? Or are they paid simply for showing up?
How is your service staff paid? By per hour wage? Tip swimming pool? Some mix of both? Does your pay structure promote period or turnover? What about overtime? Are you paying overtime? Lawfully?
In addition to costing every item on every menu, have you done the very same for liquor, beer, and red wine? Do you have specified pour sizes? Are they being adhered to? Do you have pourers which enable only for the put size for which you are charging? Just how much of your club's resort's cash is tied up in red wine stock? Have you established par stocks?
Do you have a Food and Beverage minimum? Does it make sense for your club? Do you have a minimum month-to-month service charge? Should you?
Do you supply a worker meal? How is it accounted for? Is it represented at all? Do you enable staff members to get rid of food/beverage from the club? (A bad idea!). Do you allow your staff members to consume liquors at the end of a shift? (An even worse concept!!).
Personal Events
What about your Personal Occasions? Is your catering menu priced right? What does priced right mean? Have you examined the competitive environment? What are you doing to bring weddings and conferences to the club/resort? Are you covering the expenses of establishing and breaking down every room based on the varying requirements of each occasion?
Do your personal event policies make good sense? When is the "assurance' due? When is payment completely required? Do you require a signed agreement? Do you even have a contract that you require be signed?
A Solution
Lots of concerns! Get a management business that will work collaboratively with you to respond to all of these and any others and create a personalized food and beverage experience that shows your special situation and supplies what your members/guests desire and are willing to pay for.