With a solid team of culinary leaders, Barona has recreated and elevated the scope of its food and beverage program to meet-and-exceed-guests’ expectations.
When Steve Klein took over in 1999 as Executive Director of Food & Beverage at what was then known as Barona Casino in Lakeside, Calif., the resort had a small, conventional, well-run foodservice operation that everyone seemed pretty content with.
F&B Profile
•Club Name/Location: Barona Resort & Casino, Lakeside, Calif. |
“There was a 200-seat buffet and a 50-seat café,” recalls Klein. “The resort was focused primarily on service and gaming. Foodservice was stuck in neutral; it was not a culinary-driven operation.”
But time has changed not only that mentality, but the resort itself. In 2003, Barona—owned and operated by The Barona Band of Mission Indians—completed a $260 million, two-year expansion that included, among other things, a new casino, a resort hotel, an events center and an 18-hole, championship golf course. To mark its repositioning as more of a resort destination than strictly a gaming center, the property was renamed the Barona Valley Ranch Resort & Casino.
“When the expansion was complete, we had eight distinct dining venues, but we haven’t stopped there,” Klein says. “Our customer base has evolved, so we must as well, and the tribe and the staff now constantly work to improve our foodservice offerings and menus.
“Today, we’ve not only shortened our name to Barona Resort & Casino,” he reports, “we also have 17 different culinary operations and over 900 foodservice employees.”
“Cooks get a lot of hands-on experience through the apprenticeship program, and the resort gets more passionate employees.” —Jim Phillips, Executive Chef, Barona Resort & Casino |
High Steaks
Until recently, Executive Chef Dean Thomas, the 2007 American Culinary Federation (ACF) Chef of the Year, oversaw the Barona culinary staff along with his Executive Sous Chef, Jim Phillips, CEC. The two culinary dynamos expertly combined elegant presentation with the creativity of contemporary cuisine in each of the resort’s stylish dining establishments.
When Thomas stepped down from his position to pursue other interests earlier this summer, Phillips was named Executive Chef.
“I worked with Chef Dean for two years,” notes Phillips whose own impressive career includes time as an executive chef with Dallas-based ClubCorp, as well as a stint with The University Club in San Diego. “He refused to produce mediocre ‘casino food,’ and so together we focused on creating upscale, gourmet cuisine for each of our foodservice outlets. We created new recipes, reworked the purchasing processes and, ultimately, reinvigorated dining at Barona.”
All of their efforts earned the resort a number of accolades. In 2008, Barona earned the California Restaurant Association (CRA) San Diego Chapter’s 2008 Gold Medallion for Best Casino Dining. The Barona Oaks Steakhouse has earned an Award of Distinction from Wine Enthusiast Magazine three years in a row. The Ranch House Buffet earned the CRA San Diego Chapter’s 2007 Gold Medallion for Best Casino Buffet. And the Sage Café earned the CRA San Diego Chapter’s 2007 Gold Medallion for Best Casino Restaurant.
“Dean’s drive was a big part of the reason I came to Barona in the first place,” says Phillips, who is now focused on continuing to improve resort menus that he describes as “constantly changing” (to see Barona’s current menus, visit HERE). At the same time, he is pursuing plans to design and launch a new restaurant concept.
“The resort has gone to great lengths to create and use the resources we have here at Barona, from growing our own vegetables and herbs in the chef’s garden, to preparing meats in our own dry-aging room, to making our own breads and desserts in the bakery,” Phillips says. “We’re very lucky to have the resources we do.”
To supplement the demands of the restaurants, Barona purchases as many premium, local and regional products as possible. And so, from breakfast to a late-night snack, guests have an abundance of delectable dining options to choose from, whether it’s at one of the restaurants, gameside while playing in the casino, or at an event in the Golf Events Center.
“I have to admit, the steakhouse is our baby,” says Phillips. “It is our signature upscale restaurant and we offer an eclectic combination of steakhouse favorites and gourmet dishes.”
Patrons want to eat high-quality steak, adds Klein, and Barona sets out to give them just that. The porterhouse short loins and buffalo rib eye steaks, two of the restaurant’s most popular menu items, are dried for 21 days in the resort’s dry aging room. At $46, the latter is the most expensive steak selection on the menu. “The dry aging produces extremely tender and flavorful meats,” says Phillips. “You can’t find that just anywhere.”
But for guests who might prefer premium chicken—or anything else—to steak, the Barona staff now also oversees a full range of gustatory options that includes: the Ranch House Buffet, Ho Wan Noodle Shop, Sage Café, Game Side Dining, Seafood Plaza, Cucina, and four food-court concepts (the Barona Coffee Co, Feisty Kate’s, The Pizza Place and Rubio’s), plus 24-hour in-room dining, F&B service on the gaming floor, a banquet facility, a snack bar at the Golf Events Center, an employee dining room, a butcher shop, a bakery, a garde manger kitchen, a commissary kitchen, and the Barona Culinary Institute.
“We’ve come a long way over the past decade,” Klein understates. “Food is now one of the main attractions at Barona, and it’s also become one of our biggest marketing tools.”
It Pays to Play
In fact, as a slumping economy conspires against the resort business, Barona has found that food-focused incentives can be some of the best ways to bring people in the door.
“We recently ran a special where players who spent a certain dollar amount in the casino would win two complimentary dinners in the steakhouse,” says Klein, who works with Barona’s strategic marketing team to develop various stay-and-play packages. “It proved to be very successful.” Barona has also found that by positioning and marketing each of its dining operations as an amenity of its own, guests are more likely to explore and indulge in all that the property has to offer.
“Our restaurant chefs create most of the dishes from scratch,” says Phillips, “including hand-blended salad dressings, house-smoked salmon, freshly baked pastries, and handcrafted gelato. If we don’t make it in house, we procure only premium products from our vendors. When you combine that kind of quality with good marketing, it’s a win-win.”
With so many choices under one roof, Barona’s culinary and marketing teams seek to foster a partnership between the concepts, rather than forcing them to compete with one another.
“We strive to make each menu unique to the restaurant’s theme,” explains Phillips. “To do that, each outlet has its own chef who creates the daily specials and menus. We don’t overlap any dishes.”
Back to School at Barona
While culinary schools and programs continue to sprout like mushrooms, apprenticeships are gaining favor as a preferred route to a professional culinary career. Using apprenticeships as a path to reach chef status has long been a tradition in European kitchens, but the approach has only recently gained new momentum in the U.S.
In 2004, Barona was seeking to improve recruitment and retention among its culinary staff and build an experienced team of cooks. Under the guidance of its former Executive Chef, Dean Thomas, the resort added a demonstration kitchen and adjacent private dining room, thus establishing the Barona Culinary Institute. Today, the Institute offers training for hourly staff and leadership classes for management, as well as a two-year ACF apprenticeship program limited to about two dozen students.
“The apprentices are full-time employees and their education is fully sponsored by the resort, which pays for books, tests and fees,” says Phillips. “Cooks get a lot of hands-on experience through the apprenticeship program, and the resort gets more passionate employees.”
The program requires students to commit to approximately 4,000 work hours, all of which are served at Barona in the student’s current paid position. In addition, the student is required to participate in 345 classroom hours. “During this time the student is rotated through our various kitchens for experience and exposure to skills, techniques and—most importantly—staff,” says Phillips.
The program has been so successful, notes Klein, that employees have been anxiously awaiting the opening of enrollment for the next class.
Doubling Down
In July, Barona opened its new Italian-themed restaurant, Cucina. This marked the first phase of several new restaurants planned for the resort. “While many resorts and casinos are forced to cut back due to the economy, Barona continues to enhance the services we provide to our guests,” says Klein.
Cucina is reminiscent of an Italian Piazza and features a 3,800-lb. ceramic wood-stove hearth oven, which produces pizzas, calzones and pasta dishes. Live kitchen cameras capture chefs over the hot line and broadcast the action on plasma screens, so guests can watch their food as it is being prepared.
Overlooking Barona’s newest garden, Cucina can accommodate up to 175 guests and also features a private dining room that can accommodate up to 20 for special events or meetings.
Continuing its mission to enhance services, Barona also debuted its new Seafood Plaza restaurant in August.
“In this economy, people crave simple and delicious meals at an affordable price,” says Phillips. “The menu concept for both Cucina and Seafood Plaza is a back-to-basics approach using fresh, high-quality ingredients prepared in a simple, straightforward way.”
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