While many golfers, who Paul Wilson, Executive Chef of Cyprian Keyes GC in Boylston, Mass. calls “some of the most impatient people I have ever met in my life,” want something quick to eat, most non-golfers prefer to enjoy their meals. Club menus are also evolving to offer more variety and lighter fare.
Gary Sangenario has enjoyed working at Wachusett Country Club in West Boylston, Mass. for more than 45 years and proudly wears a red Wachusett CC ball cap, but he’s played golf only five or six times in his life and he rarely sets foot on the course, the Worcester Telegram reported. The 65-year-old is the club’s Executive Chef.
The 1972 Wachusett Regional graduate started at Wachusett CC as the third cook after studying for two years at the Culinary Institute of American in Hyde Park, N.Y., not far from the birthplace of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Telegram reported. In 1975, he became the head chef.
Back then, he spent much of his time cooking for functions and outings, and the club’s restaurant served mostly sandwiches and burgers, the Telegram reported. But times have changed.
“Wachusett is known for its prime rib,” Sangenario said. “If we took it off the menu, we’d be shot at high noon.”
Sangenario and his staff also prepare everything from haddock, swordfish and salmon, all fresh from West Boylston Seafood, to Southwestern and Asian cuisine for diners in the 85-seat Ross Tavern, the Telegram reported.
“You couldn’t sell that here years ago,” he said, “but now younger people coming up are more accepting to trying new things.”
His second-year assistant Ron Sakowski, another CIA graduate whom Sangenario called the best cook he’s ever worked with, has introduced a lighter fare, including a pan-seared tuna, the Telegram reported.
Sangenario said very few women frequented the club when he first came to Wachusett, but their numbers have increased and he credits them with benefiting the dining experience, the Telegram reported.
“The quality and variety improved because the women demanded it,” he said, “and it’s a good thing because they’re more interested in the variety and changing to lighter fare, such as salads.”
Wachusett CC is open to the public for golf, but Sangenario said many people still don’t realize that you don’t have to golf in order to eat at the restaurant, the Telegram reported.
“A lot of people,” he said, “ask me, ‘Isn’t it private up there? Can you just walk in?’ I say, ‘Of course you can just walk in.’ That’s probably not known by the majority of the public, a vast majority. Because I think if they knew of the quality of the food we put out here, the price we charge, I don’t think you can beat Wachusett.”
The $15 minimum wage has bumped prices a bit, but burgers are $10, surf-and-turf is $24. The prime rib is $19.99 and most meals are under $20, the Telegram reported. Wachusett makes all of its own desserts and each costs $4. The chocolate lava cake is the biggest seller.
Nick Marrone, who owns Wachusett CC with his family, estimated that golfers account for 60 percent of the restaurant business, down from 80 percent five years ago, the Telegram reported. Marrone posts the daily food specials on the club’s website, Facebook and Instagram, and he e-mails them to 2,500 people.
“We’ve got to balance the menu,” Sangenario said, “between the golfers coming in and the general public coming in who want to dine with their wives on Friday or Saturday night. I think most golf courses struggle with that.”
Golfers coming off the course or about to play tend to order such quick meals as burgers, sliders or sushi, the Telegram reported, while nongolfers want to take their time and enjoy the dining experience.
“I don’t think you’re going to get your average golfer to try sushi or pan-seared tuna, which is raw in the middle,” Sangenario said.
In addition to a red Wachusett CC ball cap, Sangenario wears a white chef coat and black pants in his open kitchen in view of the patrons at the bar, the Telegram reported.
“It’s kind of nice,” he said. “You get to know all the members and I’ve met so many good people up here.”
Sangenario works long hours, but when he’s off the clock he enjoys tending to his vegetable garden and fruit trees, the Telegram reported. His wife, Susan, a former hostess at Wachusett CC, does most of the cooking at home. All five of his children were married at the club.
“The Marrone family has been a great match for me,” he said. “They’re a great, caring, loving family. They’re all extremely hard workers. They work as hard as any of their staff and that’s really nice to see. I think that makes us all want to work hard and keep up to their standards.”
Sangenario told the Telegram he wouldn’t enjoy working at a regular restaurant as much.
“I couldn’t imagine going to a dark, four-walled kitchen,” he said. “Here I come to work every day and I smell green grass being cut, I see blue skies, I see Wachusett Reservoir. The place is kept immaculate and we keep the kitchen immaculate as well.”
Jim Ruschioni belonged to Oak Hill CC in Fitchburg for 30 years and won 18 club championships. He’s belonged to Wachusett CC for nearly a decade and won the 2017 club championship, the Telegram reported. He’s seen the importance of food at golf clubs grow over the years.
“I think today with the different breed of golfer,” Ruschioni said, “who is more of a social golfer than a player, it’s very important to them and you’ll see a lot of the places nowadays redoing their clubhouses, spending millions of dollars. It’s more of a social event and I think to them the food is very important. When we were growing up and playing competitive golf at a younger age, food to me wasn’t that important. The game was more important than the food, but I think that’s reversed with the current players.”
Wachusett CC plans to install three TrackMan golf simulators and some flat-screen televisions in the clubhouse this fall in order to keep the restaurant open year-round, the Telegram reported.
Paul Wilson, Executive Chef at Cyprian Keyes Golf Club in Boylston, Mass. is 55 and has worked in the food industry since he was 12, the Telegram reported. He has cooked for golf clubs and regular restaurants and even owned a restaurant. He cooked at Cyprian Keyes many years ago, left and returned to Cyprian four years ago. He knows his food.
“The menu is the challenge here,” he said. “As much as you want to service every golfer before or after they play, you want to serve the public, too.”
Wilson does his best to accommodate everyone, the Telegram reported, but he has learned that the dining habits of golfers coming off the course or about to tee off are far different than those of the general public.
“Golfers are some of the most impatient people I have ever met in my life,” he said. “Golfers just want something to eat. They’re not here to dine. People off the street are here to dine. So for the waitstaff and the cook, the communication is imperative that we know who we’re serving because golfers want their food now, whereas someone else is coming in for a couple of hours and a couple glasses of wine and to enjoy the scenery out on the patio or to have a business meeting and it’s more laid-back.”
Wilson doesn’t consider business from nongolfers to be a bonus, the Telegram reported.
“I want to serve people,” he said. “I don’t care who they are. I don’t care if they’re coming off the course or coming off the street. I don’t care if they’re coming off a mountain from a hike. I want to put out the most well-rounded menu with influences from around the world.”
Ethnic restaurants may feature only Italian, Asian or Greek food. “I want to cook all of that,” he said, “and the more people who are accepting of that, the more fun it is in the kitchen for us to do.”
Over the years, Wilson has prepared kangaroo sliders, bison burgers and pheasant pâtés, but burgers, club sandwiches and salads remain popular, the Telegram reported. The most expensive item on the menu is the $22 rib-eye steak, and most entrées cost under $20.
Wilson said many people still don’t realize they can eat at Cyprian without playing golf, but the number of nongolfers dining at the club is growing, the Telegram reported. He estimated that 60 percent of the diners are golfers, compared to 80 percent four years ago. For the second year, Cyprian has live music on Saturday nights on the patio overlooking the course and attracts 80 to 120 people off the street.
Wilson and his staff of 13 cooks work weddings, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, showers and corporate meetings at the club, but the restaurant is a daily effort during the golf season, the Telegram reported. During the winter, the restaurant remains open for prime rib on Friday nights and brunch on Sunday mornings.
“When the snow leaves and we’re able to open the course,” Wilson said, “you really go from almost zero miles an hour to 100 miles an hour.”
After leagues finish on Wednesdays and Thursdays, Wilson and his staff could serve up to 100 people in 90 minutes, the Telegram reported.
“The restaurant is the only piece of our business that has been consistently growing in each of the past five years,” Cyprian Keyes Owner/General Manager David Frem said.
The number of golfers nearly everywhere has decreased over the last decade or two, the Telegram reported, so golf clubs have had to look for other revenue streams.
“Golf courses are more aware of the importance a restaurant plays in the entire package,” said Matt Stephens, General Manager of Blackstone National Golf Club in Sutton.
Stephens said food and beverage account for 36 percent of the club’s revenue and food alone for about 20 percent, the Telegram reported. He also estimated that golfers account for 80 percent of the diners at the club.
“It’s been something we’ve been trying to work on for years to bring more public in,” executive chef Woody Peel said.
Peel began working as a cook when he was 16 and has cooked for several restaurants, including a 24-hour truck stop in Springfield, Mass. Blackstone is his only golf club and he’s worked there for 11 years, the last eight as Executive Chef, the Telegram reported. The biggest difference between working as a chef at a golf course and a restaurant is that Blackstone has leagues four nights a week and 60 or so golfers can show up to eat at the restaurant and patio afterward.
“Outings may be larger,” Peel said, “but they’re easier because the menu is set.
“For the leagues, you hand them a menu and anything goes. It’s chaotic.”
Over the past five years, Blackstone National has become more involved in community events to spread the word that the restaurant is open to everyone, and the effort has paid off, the Telegram reported. Stephens said the food and beverage business has grown 15 to 20 percent each of the past five years. Building a deck two years ago has allowed the club to hold more events.
Peel told the Telegram golfers like sandwiches, but the public prefers entrées, including fish and chips or baked haddock. The 8-ounce Blackstone burger with all the fixings is the No. 1 seller. Peel and his staff have added tuna steak, smoked brisket and pulled pork as specials in recent years. The most expensive meal at the National Grill is the $18 steak tips. The snack shack by the first tee sells a lot of hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages and chicken salad sandwiches to golfers in a hurry.
Peel wears a red, blue or gray chef coat with black pants and a black Blackstone cap, the Telegram reported. He doesn’t wear a tall chef hat.
“They’re kind of goofy,” he said.
Blackstone offers free live music on Friday and Saturday nights and attracts up to 350 diners on Saturdays, the Telegram reported. The National Grill closes for two or three months during the winter.
While Wachusett, Cyprian Keyes and Blackstone National try to spread the word that they welcome diners whether they golf or not, Worcester Country Club and The Haven Country Club in Boylston are private country clubs and their food and beverage staffs face a different challenge, the Telegram reported.
“The golf course gets the members here,” Worcester CC General Manager Bill Shaw said, “the food, the service and the social community of it keeps them here. The golf course gets the new member, but the food retains our members.”
Worcester CC has 450 memberships, including 70 social memberships who can play golf once a month but have full access to the pool, tennis, basketball, pickleball, bowling and festivities and dining, the Telegram reported. Those memberships account for well over 1,000 members and about 200 social members.
“One of the interesting things that people don’t think about is that the food and beverage staff is the only staff that serves 100 percent of the membership,” Shaw said. “The golf staff does not, the grounds staff does not. This is the staff that touches every single person on the property.”
Shaw told the Telgram Worcester charges a monthly food minimum in part to staff the kitchen throughout the year.
“If you ran a restaurant in a town with 450 families,” Shaw said, “you’d better be good because you’re asking those families to eat there two, three times a week at least in order for you to keep your doors open. So WCC must offer great food and service to prompt members to return and not merely for the members to fulfill their monthly food minimums.”
Craig Cobb took over as Worcester CC’s Executive Chef on June 9 after serving as Executive Chef at Wellesley CC for 19 years and at Essex County CC in New Jersey for 15, the Telegram reported. Cobb has 15 staff members, including 10 cooks. Variety is vital.
“Sometimes you have a French-inspired special,” he said, “sometimes you have an Italian-inspired special and you have to cook everything. You have to cook chicken fingers and you have to be able to cook foie gras. Here, you really have to know your stuff.”
Cobb also knows pastry. One of his instructors at the Culinary Institute of America was Albert Kumin, who was a pastry chef at the White House when Jimmy Carter was president, the Telegram reported. Cobb’s most popular desserts are a Boston cream pie with a warm chocolate sauce on top and carrot cake.
Cobb told the Telegram the favorite entrées include haddock with a shrimp and crab crust, big diver sea scallops with a bacon and corn risotto, filets, sirloins and 8-ounce burgers. Not everyone wants a heavy meal or a dessert, however. Cobb said more diners prefer lighter fare.
“People don’t want to walk away from the table feeling stuffed anymore,” Cobb said. “People are going away from mashed potatoes and having to have a starch all the time and more vegetables.”
Cobb knows he must accommodate members and not just because they’ve paid a monthly food minimum, the Telegram reported.
“Here you won’t say no to anybody,” he said. “You’re here to service them. We’re here to make them happy. If they want a tuna sandwich at 9 at night, we make them a tuna sandwich at 9 at night. In a private restaurant, you can just say, ‘No, we don’t do that.’”
Reservations are suggested but not required at WCC, which is open to members except in January, the Telegram reported.
Brian Moffett, General Manager at The Haven CC, discovered early in his career exactly how important food was at a private country club, the Telegram reported. In his first year as General Manager at Oakley CC in Watertown in the mid-1990s, he had to fire the executive chef because some members complained about having to spend their monthly food minimum on food they didn’t enjoy.
“There’s nothing worse when people have bad meals because they have to spend,” Moffett said. “Everybody thinks the course is great, but if your food or your service is subpar, it can give you more headaches. They’re paying and they have to be here and there’s nothing worse when someone says, ‘OK, what do I have left on my minimum?’ Or ‘Give me 20 shrimp just to spend the minimum.’”
That’s not the case at The Haven, where many members easily spend more than their monthly minimum, which is charged from April through December, the Telegram reported.
“Here we have a lot of members who will come here for their first choice for dining as opposed to going to a restaurant,” Moffett said.
Moffett rates the food as equally important as the golf course, with service close behind, the Telegram reported. The Haven has about 330 members, including 50 or so social members who use the pool and dine, and 10 dining-only members.
When Regan Remillard purchased The Haven, then called Mount Pleasant CC, in 2012, the restaurant was fully open only on Wednesdays and Fridays, the Telegram reported. Now it’s open for lunch on Tuesdays and for lunch and dinner with a complete menu Wednesday through Saturday and for lighter fare on Sunday. A buffet serves 112 golfers on Tuesday nights.
The Haven CC Executive Chef Richard Kunsch said 60 percent or more of the members prefer the lighter fare, which wasn’t available before Remillard bought the course, the Telegram reported. Back then, the menu was very formal.
The menu is changed four times a year and the club runs several specials because some members eat two or three times there a week, the Telegram reported.
“I like the flexibility of being able to do different stuff all the time,” Kunsch said. “On Mondays, we’re barbecuing out on the course for outings at the snack shack. We can barbecue up here on the patio. We can do theme dinners all the time: Cajun nights, wine dinners, Italian nights, Southwestern nights, sushi.”
After outings, they have carving stations, pasta stations, taco stations and stir-fry stations, the Telegram reported. Kunsch and his staff need to know how to cook everything.
“That’s the fun part about it,” he said.
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