Investing in kitchen upgrades helps improve dining operations across the board.
One of the most important parts of any club or resort is a place that members and guests rarely see: the kitchen. The kitchen sets the tone for the entire dining experience. Although members and guests may not physically spend time in the kitchen, they can certainly see the results of how effectively it is designed and operated, in everything from the food quality to the service.
“The product the kitchen produces is extremely important to the vitality of the club,” says J. Kevin Walker, Executive Chef at Cherokee Town & Country Club in Atlanta. “With the proper equipment, design and layout, the kitchen becomes more efficient and functional, which in turn helps the service staff do the same. Also, it helps to attract the talent needed to produce the product the members demand.”
SUMMING IT UP
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A Gutsy Approach
When Kenwood Country Club in Cincinnati (“Finding Profit In Options,” C&RB, November 2009) embarked on a complete “gut rehab” of its 30-year-old a la carte kitchen, Executive Chef Chris Ropp focused on improving quality and efficiency. “I set it up in the Classic French brigade system, where there are stations for each protein and stations for each garnish,” he says. “It is designed so that someone is concentrating on four or five things, as opposed to 15 to 20 things. That means quality is in the forefront, as opposed to mass production.”
Kenwood’s kitchen has a hot island that is broken into fou
r stations. One side has the meat station, which handles steaks, chops, duck and other firm proteins. To its left is a garnish station, which handles all the potatoes, vegetables and sauces.
The garnish cook is charged with getting the plate set up for the person cooking the meat. Simultaneously, on the other side of the line, a cook handles the fish and pastas, with someone on his/her right doing garnishes and sauces for the fish station. “This way, my protein guys are communicating on check times,” says Ropp. “For example, they’ll say, ‘I have 10 minutes on the well-done steak, so slow down the salmon.’ And, the guys doing the garnishes are communicating the whole check.”
The kitchen also has a garde manger station that handles salads, cold appetizers and some hot appetizers. “We have expanded on everyone’s responsibilities so that any one station can take on either hot or cold,” says Ropp.
Each cook now has six burners and an oven or a Spanish plancha, which is similar to a large cast-iron skillet. “It’s like searing the steak in a cast-iron pan, but on steroids,” says Ropp. “It gets to 1,000 degrees, where char-broilers will only get to 550-600 degrees. The searing is significantly faster, and it creates a much better crust on steak, compared to the char grill.”
The cooking island also has under-counter refrigeration drawers, giving the cooks everything they need in one space. “It is set up for efficiency, so they can pull [the protein] out of the drawer, season and sear,” says Ropp.
One of the most significant kitchen improvements is the updated hood system. “Our old air system was so antiquated that we were basically pulling air-conditioned air out of public spaces into the kitchen,” says Kraig Kanitz, Kenwood’s General Manager.
The new sophisticated system automatically adjusts itself based on kitchen traffic. “If we have a slow lunch with only one burner going, the system senses that and gears down, so it is not working as hard as it would at 7 P.M. on a Friday night,” explains Kanitz. “The hood system was one of the most expensive elements, but we’re hoping the return on investment is only two years out in terms of savings on utility costs.”
Small Space, Big Potential
For the past two years, the Ocean Terrace Restaurant at Ocean Edge Resort & Golf Club in Brewster, Mass. (The New Wave of Ideas at Ocean Edge Resort,” C&RB, November 2005), has been sharing a kitchen with the resort’s pub. But as the restaurant has evolved, this setup was no longer feasible.
The resort is currently transforming a disbanded pastry kitchen into a full-service restaurant kitchen. Prior to the renovation, the Ocean Terrace Restaurant was one floor above the Ocean Terrace Kitchen. Now located on the same level, a door leads from the kitchen directly onto the terrace. “This project takes us out of the public areas of the mansion, so we’re not running food through guests, wedding parties or the lobby,” says Philip Flath, Executive Chef.
The new kitchen has just one 14-foot line, with space for three cooks plus a chef. “It is a confined space, but we fit in everything we needed,” says Flath. “It will be more compact, but everything is right in front of you and around you.”
With storage downstairs in the main kitchen, which services pub and banquet facilities, the Ocean Terrace kitchen will use a rolling rack system, broken up by meal period. “We’ll rotate through and replenish the service line for each meal period,” Flath explains.
The new kitchen is fully loaded with a convection oven, a six-burner range, char grill, flattop and fryers, along with under-drawer refrigeration on the line in each station. All of these features will allow the chef to tailor the menu more appropriately to guest and members’ expectations, says Flath.
“Before, we had to limit the menu to fit with what we were working with and the travel time to walk it all the way out there,” he says. “Now we’ll be able to provide the composed entree plates and the different types of foods, textures, colors and varieties that members and guests have come to expect.”
Expanding the Lines
To increase versatility within the kitchen at Indian Hills Country Club in Mission Hills, Kan., the club reconfigured the space, expanding it by one-third. The new kitchen was divided into two distinct areas for a la carte and banquets. (Prior to the renovation, the kitchen did not have a full banquet line.)
The banquet line is set up in the rear of the kitchen. The area has double the amount of equipment as before and is designed for flexibility. “We can move the prep tables around, depending on if it is a buffet or a plated event,” says Ryan Bennett, Executive Chef. “The banquet line allows us to do larger parties without interrupting a la carte service.”
The a la carte line was also redesigned to improve efficiency. Prep tables were added to every station and refrigerated drawers were added underneath the hot equipment. “In the old kitchen, we sometimes had to go into the walk-ins to get items out that we needed for service,” says Bennett. “Now, we can keep them stored safely on the line.”
One of the biggest improvements to the space was creating better access to the dining rooms and banquet areas via a service hallway. The kitchen is located in the middle of the clubhouse, with a la carte dining operations—including a pub, a grill, a formal dining room and outdoor patio seating—on one side and ballrooms and private dining rooms on the opposite side. The service hallway runs through the middle of the clubhouse and gives the kitchen access to both sides. There is direct access to the patio at the end of the hallway.
Getting Serious About Casual
After a 2004 survey at Cherokee Town & Country Club in Atlanta revealed that its members wanted more casual dining, the club added not only more venues for that purpose, but also a new casual-dining kitchen. Prior to the survey, the kitchen for casual dining was about 700 square feet, with a main cooking line of less than 120 square feet that serviced the 92-seat casual family dining room.
But with a renovation, the club added a 96-seat outdoor dining terrace, a 47-seat tavern and an 86-seat adult casual dining space, along with a 2,800-sq. ft. Terrace Level Kitchen to service these venues. Located on the lower level, the kitchen is directly behind all of the casual-dining venues.
With significantly more space, the kitchen is set up into stations to speed up production and increase the menu options. “With the improved space, our ticket times are more consistent and so is the food selection,” says Walker.
One of Walker’s favorite additions to the kitchen is the sandwich grill station. “We designed this station to take the heat of hot sandwiches, burgers and children’s menu items off the other stations and to better expedite service,” he explains. “It is located next to the garde manger station. These two stations work in tandem, helping to push out the ‘simple’ tickets of sandwiches and salads, expediting the dining experience for members in a rush. No longer do they get stuck behind a table of eight full entrees.”
By moving the casual dining kitchen downstairs, the club also revamped the upstairs main kitchen, which services banquets and the club’s formal dining option—the Williams Room.
“We used to have adult casual-dining items come off the main line in the main kitchen,” says Michael S. Wheeler, CCM, CCE, Cherokee’s Chief Operating Officer & General Manager. “But when we moved that downstairs, we were able to design the main line to serve one function and one function only: the Williams Room.”
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