After a failed relationship with a management firm, the city of Kilgore, Texas asked its fire department to help turn around the financially ailing Meadowbrook Country Club. The renovated Firehouse Bar & Grill and the appeal of lunch specials and catfish have helped to generate new memberships and outing business, while also forging a valuable camaraderie with the community.
The Kilgore (Texas) Fire Department is being given credit for helping to turn around the Meadowbrook Country Club, the Longview (Texas) News-Journal reported. And not surprisingly, given that firefighters are known for preparing good and hearty fare in their own firehouses, the department is making a revival of the club’s restaurant a major part of the turnaround.
The city of Kilgore bought the financially ailing Meadowbrook CC for $275,000 in May 2012, the News-Journal reported. The city first contracted with a management company, Eagle Golf, to operate the formerly private nine-hole course, restaurant and pro shop for about a year, before ending that relationship.
The fire department was then asked to see if it could help to make the club viable, and in its first year running Meadowbrook, the News-Journal reported, the club has seen an increase in reservations, memberships, public golf outings and, maybe most importantly, camaraderie with the community.
“We were surprised how receptive people were,” Fire Chief Johnny Bellows said. “Firefighters coming in to help out at a golf course is pretty unusual, and the thinking is they are probably not real educated about what to do at the golf course and at the restaurant.
“Truth be known, we are not,” Bellows added. “Over the year, we have had a lot of time to grow and gain experience, and we have learned from several mistakes.”
In addition to revamping the golf course, the News-Journal reported, the fire department has completed renovation of The Firehouse Bar & Grill, which is open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays.
Winter hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Sherri Shelton, the restaurant manager, said working with the firefighters has been an unusual but enjoyable experience.
“It’s not way out of the way, but it is off the beaten path,” she said. “I think we have done a great job putting together a menu that is terrific. We added a bunch of dinners, and we do lunch specials now. We added fish; we have catfish.”
When Patti McCarty, Emma McCarty and Sissy LeBarge visited the restaurant for the first time, they told the News-Journal that they were pleased with the way it turned out.
“We are just glad to see someone do something with this country club besides play golf,” Patti McCarty said.
“The food has helped a lot — the food, and the events,” Bellows noted. “We really have a good handle on the events now, which I don’t think that the past managers of the center here did. We are beginning to get a profit from that. We are beginning to get an increase in events that are scheduled here.
“The overall big picture is things are improving here because each part of our business here supplements the other,” he added. “The events help the restaurant. The restaurants help the events, and they all help the golf course.”
The club includes a ballroom that can be rented for $100 per hour for up to $400, and two smaller meeting rooms for $25 an hour. If food is involved, it must be provided by the club’s restaurant.
David Cline, the club’s golf pro and one of 13 non-firefighter employees who now help run Meadowbrook, told the News-Journal that memberships, available from $100 to $150 per month, depending on the category, have climbed from the high 80s to about 130 over the past year.
The new management setup, which sees firefighters working odd jobs at the club while on duty and waiting for emergency calls, seems to have worked, Bellows noted.
The relationship built between firefighters and community members is unlike anything he’s seen, added Fire Capt. Mark Henderson.
“We have a way better personal connection with the community now,” Henderson said. “You wouldn’t believe how many people thought in the past we were a volunteer department, because they never saw us out. Now, when we are on scene, people come up to us; a lot of them know us by name.
That bond helps the firefighters do their primary job when called out to the scene of a fire or wreck, he added. “I think it really has helped the community perspective of what kind of people we are,” Henderson said.
In addition to increasing membership numbers at the course, area golfers seem to have rediscovered Meadowbrook, too, the News-Journal reported. The last weekend of November was
one of the busiest he has ever seen for the course, Cline reported, with about 40 non-member golfers showing up on Friday, November 28 to use the course, and another 30 arriving on Saturday the 29th.
“There are many things that we want to continue to do to improve here that we don’t have the funds to do; just the general maintenance issues,” Bellows noted. “This building was built in the 1980s, and had very few updates or changes to it. We are trying to update it and provide the maintenance that wasn’t done prior to us being here.”
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.