and Jamie L. Scheppers, Associate Editor
When it recently upgraded its dining room technology, Cleveland’s Union Club found it was able to greatly improve service through touch-screen order entry. No matter what a diner wanted, the club’s wait staff could now efficiently and accurately transmit the order to the kitchen by going to a computer screen and pushing a quick succession of pre-programmed bars that represented every choice on the club’s fairly extensive menu.
Almost every choice, that is. As the wait staff reported back about how the system was working out, recalls Scott Spencer, the club’s Assistant Manager, it seems that all was going very well, except for one regular diner who kept putting the new technology to the test.
“He was typical of many people here, in that he was a long-time member who came here every day at the same time, always sat at the same table and in the same seat, and had the same meal,” Spencer says. “While the (touch-screen) was actually a benefit for serving people like him more efficiently, he posed a challenge, because he wanted his order prepared in a special way that (the pre-programmed menu bars) couldn’t accommodate.”
And so it came to pass that Spencer worked with the system vendor to create a new order-entry bar—labeled “Mr. Matthews’ salad”—that earned a permanent place, along with Cobb and Maurice (a club specialty that we’ll hear more about later), among the Union Club’s touch-screen salad selections.
Such are the special challenges—and solutions—that need to be devised to keep city clubs operating with the times. Far more steeped in tradition and habit than even the most established golf and country clubs, and with some of the oldest (and most vertical) facilities in the industry, the pressure has been greatest on city clubs, among all industry segments, to reinvent themselves, stay in step with the times, and avoid extinction in the 21st century.
Perhaps the most extreme, and exemplary, tale of how city clubs are rising to meet these challenges can be found at the Union Club—which has not only completely made over its building, but also its membership structure and management, to take on a vibrant new look and profile as it starts its second hundred years in its current downtown location.
Making Dumbwaiters Smarter
The physical changes in the 70,000-sq. ft. Union Club building itself, made as part of a $6.5 million renovation completed last fall, speak volumes on their own about the tricky balancing of old and new that is especially unique to city club upgrades. Not too many other club properties, after all, would elect to install a second “dumbwaiter” system (if indeed they even knew what a dumbwaiter was) as part of a facility upgrade.
But as it expanded its third-floor kitchen (which couldn’t be moved cost-effectively) as part of the renovation, the Union Club had no choice but to include (and find a modern-day source of) that quaint but still-essential form of elevator, which it needs to transport meals and dishes to and from the club’s dining, function, meeting and sleeping rooms on floors one through four.
Similarly, to stay front-of-mind as a place to hold business meetings with a membership that has always represented the power elite in Cleveland business circles, function rooms had to be upgraded to offer the latest in high-tech videoconferencing and communications capabilities. But this had to be achieved while retaining the club’s rich sense of history and boardroom-like surroundings. That meant finding ways, without detracting from an impression of high-powered corporate elegance, to: unobtrusively store state-of-the-art servers in temperature-controlled closets; equip rooms with drop-down screens; hide pop-up “power boxes” in conference tables; and outfit as many areas as possible in the solid-stone building with wireless connectivity.
“Revenues from business functions have always been the bread-and-butter of the club,” says Spencer, “and a survey of members [conducted by an outside consultant in the early stages of planning the renovation] made it clear that we needed to upgrade our meeting rooms’ technical capabilities, or stand to lose a lot of that business.
“Some of the equipment we’ve put in—like an interactive ‘smart whiteboard’ that can be used in lieu of flip charts and distributed electronically to all meeting participants—is so state-of-the-art that most members say they’ve never seen it anywhere else,” he adds. “It’s all part of trying to have a ‘Wow’ factor, not only for members who are looking for the best place to hold their meetings, but also for others who come here and might be thinking about joining or using the club themselves.”
First Things First
In addition to taking on these special infrastructure challenges, the primary objective of the Union Club renovation (which was funded through a combination of member contributions and bank loans) was to improve the building’s overall functionality and broaden its appeal to prospective new members.
The focus on functionality centered on getting better use of—and buzz from—the building’s first floor. The club’s signature marble grand staircase in the center of the building creates a strong and lasting first impression, and serves as a natural traffic crossroads in all directions.
But at a city club especially—where networking is highly valued and the ability to “see and be seen” is a key membership benefit—having the main dining room on an upper floor was identified, both through member survey feedback and consultants’ observations, as a major drawback, in several ways. It kept existing members from having full awareness of the club, or even of who else belonged. Even worse, it dispersed activity levels, so there was little or no chance to overwhelm prospective new members who might come through the building with any sense that the Union Club was a must-join place.
The new plan, designed to centralize the most common club activities on the first floor, called for moving the reading room to a quieter area at the back of the floor, adjacent to an auxiliary entrance that once served as the doorway for women and other non-members.
The dining room was relocated to the reading room space—a streetside room with floor-to-ceiling windows that provide pleasant sunlight for breakfast and lunch and a pleasing glimpse of urban bustle throughout the day. But the room also has fabric-covered walls, to keep it sufficiently quiet and accommodating for both business and social conversations.
Almost immediately, the dining room’s new location “created a synergy where members began to see other members more, adding an entirely different social effect,” reports Claudio Caviglia, who came to the club as its new General Manager last November, just three weeks before the first post-renovation event: a celebration of the building’s original opening 100 years earlier.
On the other side of the main hall and grand staircase, member activity is also much more evident now, thanks to the relocation of the club’s main bar and upgrading of its adjacent grille room. The bar was moved from the northwest corner of the first floor, where it could seat all of five people; this location stemmed from Prohibition, when members who wanted a drink were literally tucked into one of the building’s most remote, dark and speakeasy-like recesses.
Now, though, people havi
ng a drink at the club don’t need to be hidden. And because the main door to the bar is both an easy left turn for people coming in the front door, and an easy right for people coming down the main staircase, it’s not something anyone needs to knock three times and whisper low to find, either.
The other main area affected by the renovation’s first-floor rotation—the reading room—has hardly suffered from being relegated to “back of the house” status. In fact, this classic room, which houses an historic collection of portraits of the club’s founding fathers and other prominent Cleveland business and civic leaders (including some of the five U.S. Presidents from Ohio who were Union Club members), is now better situated to serve as a quiet and dignified retreat.
The new location is also a safer haven for the room’s impressive collection of antique furniture. And the location by the back entrance makes it easier to accommodate private receptions held in the room, as well as members who want to quietly come and go as part of their daily routines. While the room has been moved away from the big windows that now provide sun to the dining room, there’s still plenty of light to read by, thanks largely to the removal of a drop ceiling that had been installed in the 1960s to hide air conditioning ducts. The room’s elegant original, molded ceiling has now been lovingly restored, and new chandeliers provide a warmer glow.
Even with the shift to a more tucked-away location, many now cite the reading room as their favorite example of the post-renovation revival of the club. “It engulfs you, and that’s a good feeling,” says Jean Smith, Membership Coordinator.
Comforting Counts
An even better feeling comes as Union Club directors and management survey the clear evidence of how all the changes made through the renovation are paying off. The new dining room, which seats 74, now almost always experiences near-capacity seating through the lunch period, reports Caviglia. The club’s overall beverage volume, not only in the revamped and relocated bar, but also through strong by-the-glass wine sales for a la carte dining and “satellite” service beyond the first floor, has kept Beverage Manager Peter Badal “remarkably busy.” And post-renovation bookings of meeting and function rooms jumped 30% from pre-renovation levels, Caviglia says, before tailing off for the usual summer slowdown.
Just as importantly, there’s clear evidence of a revived spirit within the club, as the renovation has generated exactly the type and level of member interaction that was hoped for. “[The first-floor refiguring] has made a huge difference in how the club is perceived by members,” says current Board President Jack Sherwin. “As we’d hoped, now that the main areas of activity [the dining room and bar] are centrally located, there are many more opportunities for members to run into each other unexpectedly when they arrive at the club.”
Adds Art Falco, a current Board member and 15-year member of the club: “The first-floor renovation, in particular, has created life.”
Turning Heads
As more Union Club members now meet and mingle on the club’s main floor, it’s easy to spot any of them who might be returning to the club for the first time in a few years: Just look for the ones doing repeated double-takes as they see women, minorities and people under 40. While the Union Club first began to relax its seriously old-school admission requirements 20 years ago (it first accepted women in 1983), the renovation got the club serious about making it possible for new members to join without securing several recommendations from “established” sponsors, or coming up with sizable initiation fees.
In conjunction with the renovation, a new position of Marketing & Membership Director was created, and Laurie Klingensmith, a young MBA, was brought in to head an initiative designed to effect real change in the club’s membership profile. Initiation fees were suspended for a two-year period, and reduced monthly dues schedules were established for special groups, such as members under 40 and executives with nonprofit organizations.
From an eight-year low of 930 members in 2002, the Union Club’s membership quickly swelled to over 1,100 currently. The breakdown of who the new members are is just as pleasing to the Board and management as the aggregate number: “We’ve doubled our under-40 membership, increased African-American membership by 30%, and female membership is up 18%,” Klingensmith reports. Those numbers include a new woman member who still has a vivid memory of being with her father when he was reprimanded, despite being a club member himself, for taking his daughter up the front staircase, rather than “the back way.”
While the waived-fee program has now ended, Klingensmith is confident the club can still build on the momentum created by the renovation and recent surge in membership. If anything, she feels, it should now be easier, with the initial barriers to entry dismantled, to have many of the new members sustain the real progress that has been made in broadening the club’s base. “[Our newest members] are proving to be fabulous champions of how we’ve changed,” she says. “They are really stepping up as leaders to encourage more women, minorities and younger members to now also look at all that we have to offer.”
Another valuable new form of marketing for the club is proving to be the view from the street into the basement windows directly under the new dining room. That’s where passers-by can catch a glimpse of the Union Club’s expansive new fitness center.
“[The fitness center] has really taken off in terms of being one of the best ways for getting all of the changes we’ve made around here to be noticed,” says Spencer. “It adds the one element—some kind of athletic facility—that we were really missing in comparison to other non-golfing club options in the area.”
The center, operated for the club through an outsourcing arrangement, also includes spa, sauna and massage offerings, and arrangements for personal training can be made through the center’s staff. Use of the center’s basic offerings (exercise equipment and locker/shower/sauna facilities) is made available to all members at no extra charge. “We are really stressing that it is now available as an extra value that’s part of everyone’s regular dues,” says Caviglia.
Beyond what people now see on their own, the club staff is aggressively seeking to heighten awareness about the new-look Union Club through an ongoing series of events for both existing members and new prospects for memberships and functions. These include: tours of the club’s extensive art collection; dinner-and-theater packages for shows in the nearby (walking distance) Playhouse Square district; exclusive business-leader forums, using many of the club’s own prominent members as drawing cards; and “sneak peek” days for meeting planners and administrative assistants at local businesses, so they can see, hear, taste and feel all the club has to offer, through a day of lunch, demonstrations of meeting capabilities, and even a massage.
Familiar Salad Days
All of these programs are now being created, and presented, in the new spirit of the Union Club—summed up by former President John Wheeler as “finally creating a scenario where all peo
ple feel welcome.”
At the same time, the club staff remains respectful, and proud, of its long-standing traditions, and knows the value of preserving them, even through periods of much-needed change. Here again, a salad serves as an example.
Taking a cue from the spirit of change embodied by the renovation and the club’s new membership mix, Executive Chef Matt Fife, who has been at the Union Club nine years and was promoted to his current position a year and a half ago, continually tries to inject new life and variety into the club’s menu. One page of his three-page lineup is always devoted to a series of rotating specials, including dishes as daring as rosemary truffle grits or sesame-seared tofu. These new entries, Fife reports, have been well-received and helped to boost dining room covers.
At the same time, Fife knows that some menu items are as vital to the club’s existence as the building’s 100-year-old cornerstone. Foremost among these is the Maurice salad, a chef’s salad variation, with a special mayonnaise-based dressing, that has long been known as a staple of any Cleveland businessman’s power meal.
Fife doesn’t even know how to make the Maurice, instead entrusting the critical task to long-time staffer Lou Clay, who Fife says has been making it at the club “forever.” And even after all the changes at the Union Club, Clay still makes up large batches of the salad each day.
“If I ever took the Maurice off the menu,” says Fife. “I think I would be strung up.”
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