The Colony Golf & Country Club (Bonita Springs, Fla.) has been making big moves in the past year with GM Chris Alvarez at the helm.
The club recently received 78% support for a $16.5M clubhouse renovation, including kitchen and casual dining, added new hires, including an executive chef and food and beverage director who align with the club’s culture, and moved to become fully independent.
“We gained credibility by hiring effectively,” says Alvarez. “If we didn’t have the right executive chef or F&B director at the club, we would never have been able to get the member support for this renovation.”
Showing members back-of-house limitations
When Alvarez came on board in January 2025, he says the club entered a transition period to identify key personnel, during which it changed the director of facilities and the executive chef, and hired an F&B director who had been in a hybrid role before.
Alvarez says he and the club’s Assistant General Manager, Megan Somerville, who has been at the club for seven years, had a vision of improving the kitchen and knew hiring a new chef fit that vision.
“Our vision was to take the space from 1,800 square feet to just under 5,000 square feet,” he says. “The objective was to always serve up to 150 meals in an à la carte setup, and up to 100 meals in banquets at any given time and at the same time.”
The club created a master planning committee that hosted multiple member focus groups and conducted surveys to understand members’ preferences.
According to those surveys, 99% of members wanted to upgrade and expand the grill and bar, 98% wanted to expand the kitchen and improve service, 84% wanted to cover and enclose the outdoor terrace, and 84% wanted to upgrade the main dining area. The club engaged an architect and a kitchen design firm in order to develop a plan for a presentation town hall.
Taking this feedback, Alvarez says they are moving the bar to overlook the golf course, expanding the bar to seat 28, and updating the terrace to hold 100 reservations in a temperature-controlled area with floor-to-ceiling windows.
The proposed renovation reimagines the lounge, bar, and outdoor terrace space as a “true social hub,” says Alvarez. An expanded lounge and bar will provide more seating, improved flow, and a relaxed atmosphere.
Member input shaped the renovation vision, but Alvarez and Somerville weren’t about to let the communication stop there.
Months before the town hall presentation where Alvarez and his team would present the renovation plan to members, he says that he and Somerville would tour the kitchen four times a week with focus groups that allowed the new Executive Chef, Erik Baker, and new F&B Director, Justin Trignano, to explain the inefficiencies of how the kitchen operates and why ticket times are always extended.
“Members started to understand the story of how limited we were when they saw these visual aids, which was a huge part of the selling point,” he says.
The club has 475 memberships, including golf and sports. Of that, 400 members came through to look at the kitchen between December 1 and January 20th.
After those walkthroughs, the club held a vote, and the new $16.5 million renovation passed with 78% approval.
The club plans to implement the renovations in two phases, starting with expanding the kitchen to 5,000 square feet and adding a main dining room usable by up to 130 members by November 1, 2026.
To minimize disruption to members, Alvarez plans to bring a mobile kitchen to the club for the summer.
“The great thing about our club is we are based in Southwest Florida, so it’s seasonal in the sense we have reciprocal golfers, but the way we budget for June, July, August, and September is we are closed two weeks a month anyway for golf course maintenance,” says Alvarez. “We have a great gameplan to retain our year-round staff members in that department. Having a mobile kitchen allows us to stay open more hours, and be able to pay our employees so we can retain them and take advantage of the slower season.”
Going independent
Up until October 2022, Colony Golf & Country Club was developer-owned. It then transitioned to member ownership.
“What clubs I don’t think always realize is that when there are multiple layers of reporting, the general manager is accountable to both the board and another oversight structure,” says Alvarez.
Alvarez says that without consistent communication between all parties, that structure can create friction. Eventually, the board at Colony G&CC decided it was time to bring management fully in-house.
“The most important part of this message is that every club has its own culture, and we felt a more tailored approach to management would better serve our members,” he says.
Alvarez adds that once the club had built the internal infrastructure to support its members, including a clear organizational chart, the case for a fully independent model became stronger from both an operational and financial standpoint.
“I don’t like complacency nor mediocrity, and I felt that this decision made by the club was the best path forward for the membership and organization,” says Alvarez.
He believes clubs are best served by managers who are deeply invested in the board’s vision and the club’s culture, which makes each property distinct.
The hiring of Executive Chef Baker and F&B Director Trignano aligned with this strategy, reinforcing the club’s ability to operate independently. Colony also hired Human Resources Manager Kristen Torres, Director of Facilities Tyler Church, Tennis Director Yaser Zaatini, and Controller Chris LaCivita.
Hiring the right people
When Alvarez first got to Colony G&CC, he said he honed in on data points on covers and revenues. He found that the club was doing about 40 to 50 covers a night.
Justin Trignano, F&B Director of Colony Golf & Country Club.
Since the hiring of the new chef and F&B director in January, the club has beaten food and beverage revenue actuals by $56,000 compared to last year.
Alvarez also wanted to ensure personalities would match when choosing the new hires.
“Megan brought Caroline Trignano, our Communications Director, on board, who I had worked with for eight years at two different clubs, and Caroline is married to Justin, who we then hired as the F&B Director,” says Alvarez. “Baker and Trignano worked together at The Golf Club at Palmira (Bonita Springs, Fla.), and we decided to bring him over, so it’s truly a family operation at this point where so many people are connected and understand how each other works.”
When Baker came on board, covers were growing and member satisfaction along with them, says Alvarez.
Alvarez knew he wanted to scale back the menu and encourage the chef’s creativity to move the club’s dining segment forward.
Erik Baker, Executive Chef of Colony Golf & Country Club.
Baker varies the menu style by the night of the week, which may appeal to different member demographics. He will dedicate one night to a more casual, bar menu, while having another night be more of an upscale chophouse menu.
The new business model in the kitchen focused on flexibility in the dishes and on creating a space where Baker could be creative and try new things, rather than the very formal, strict role the club had before.
A GM focused on communication
During the two phases of construction, Alvarez and Somerville plan to keep members as informed as possible on the renovation.
“[Alvarez] is all about communication,” laughs Somerville.
Every morning at 7 a.m., members receive a 10-minute podcast update on everything happening at the club.
“We call it ‘The Colony Connection’ and releasing a daily update allows us to not only keep members informed of things like the renovation project, but it helps us get ahead of things, too,” says Alvarez. “If there’s a flare-up at the club one night because we served bad oysters, we can address that the next morning. If there is a member confrontation or dispute that is turning into a rumor, I can squash it the next day.”
With upcoming board nominations, the nominating committee elected to use the podcast platform to host interview sessions with the nominated candidates. These interviews will play a big role in helping the membership get to know each individual.
Somerville says the club then sends the standard email blast to all departments.
As the club progresses with its changes, Alvarez and Somerville agree that member feedback has been positive, but their main focus right now is delivering the project on time and on budget.
