After coming to the 96-year-old club from a local farm-to-table restaurant, New Executive Chef Kevin Roark has helped to generate a 33 percent increase in food-and-beverage revenues. New seasonal menus offered in the club’s remodeled dining lounge have been part of the turnaround, by prompting many members to eat at the club instead of downtown restaurants. A push is also on to attract more weddings and event business from non-members.
Downtown Valparaiso, Ind. has grown into a dining hotbed with many celebrated restaurants, reported NWI.com, and members of Valparaiso Country Clubs, one of the oldest clubs in Northwest Indiana, were often opting to grab dinner at one instead of dining at the club.
So the 96-year-old institution hired a new Executive Chef, Kevin Roark, who most recently served as executive chef of the farm-to-table Farmhouse Restaurant at Fair Oaks Farms. Roark came up with new seasonal menus while the country club remodeled its dining lounge, and the club is also making a marketing push to host more events, especially weddings, NWI.comreported.
“There’s new food-and-beverage banquet options,” Valparaiso CC General Manager and Head Golf Professional Joshua Martin said. “We’re looking forward to having more events this winter [and] more company Christmas parties, than ever before. We’re starting to go to wedding shows because there are not a lot of indoor wedding venues around here, and a lot of people don’t know you don’t have to be a member to have an event here.”
The club with an 18-hole golf course that dates back to 1922 offers both casual and formal dining in a restaurant that overlooks the front nine and practice green, reported NWI.com.
NWI.comreported that Roark, a local high school graduate who started his culinary career at Cisco’s Cafe in Merrillville, Ind. and worked as a corporate trainer for the Bennigan’s restaurant chain, overhauled the menu so it now includes items like beer-battered white cheese curds, shrimp tacos, buffalo chicken egg rolls, blackened steak bites, an Angus burger on a brioche bun, a shaved prime rib sandwich, a Texas Ribeye, smothered chicken, and an espresso rub-encrusted pork chop.
“I have worked for numerous restaurants throughout Northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area, including my own restaurant for a few years,” Roark told NWI.com. “I have been cooking for over 30 years and have a passion for food and cooking great dishes for people. My goal is simple: to put smiles on the faces of the people who are eating my food.”
Food sales have shot up by an estimated 33 percent since Valparaiso CC brought Roark on, Martin told NWI.com.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had an executive chef of his caliber,” Martin said. “He cooked at a very popular establishment and knows farm-to-table, which is a big thing right now. We wanted that kind of technique, style and flair at the club, because there are frankly some awesome restaurants in the city, downtown on the square.
“We want to serve the best food we can at our establishment,” he added. “People have been coming out to eat. You see the butts in the seats.”
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