Kicking back with a cool cocktail and friendly conversation is a great way to cap off a day at the club. However, many club managers are not taking their bars for granted anymore. To keep pace with growing trends toward casual comfort and assure that their bars become centers of activity, managers are turning to innovative designs and layouts to create bars with character.
These days, when members and guests look to bars as a perfect haven for a casual evening at the club, they need to walk in and feel immediately immersed in the ambiance. Transforming bar spaces to meet these needs requires more than an ordinary countertop and a couple of squirm-inducing stools. Rather, clubs need to combine their personalities with creative design and décor, so bars can attract the key ingredient for success—members and guests who keep coming back for more.
Last year, the Golf Club of Avon in Avon, Conn., found an opportunity to give its bar a major facelift and atttitude adjustment after a catastrophe—severe damage from a broken sprinkler system. Prior to the sprinkler debacle, the lounge was seldom used—it was a lackluster room with an inappropriately large bar, few seating options and little pizzazz.
As he thought about the rebuilding, Kenneth Young, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer, had an epiphany. “When the sprinkler broke I realized I could better utilize that room,” he says. Thus was born the Founders’ Room, a comfortable, adults-only lounge that allows members to sit back, relax and enjoy cocktails before, after or even in lieu of dinner.
Young removed the oversized bar, remodeled the walls and added an attractive wood-beam ceiling, and the space took on a dramatically new ambiance. “We installed a fireplace, put in a high-definition flat-screen television and added a lot of furniture,” describes Young. Since the renovation, Young notes a 100 percent increase in the room’s use.
The Social Scene
Many clubs are embracing opportunities to create bars with warm and inviting atmospheres, to encourage members to spend more time there. One of the best places to start is with creative seating options.
Setting up clusters of seating areas conducive to socializing in either larger or more intimate groups is a sure way to encourage camaraderie. “We created four seating areas within the room,” explains Young. “One of the seating areas is a game table that the ladies use during the day to play cards or mahjong.”
Spreading seating options throughout the room maintains flow within the space and gives guests the option of enjoying a private cocktail or mingling with others. In the lounge area at Glenwild, in Park City, Utah, seating options vary throughout the room. “As you walk into the bar there’s a half-moon shaped booth that can seat up to six people,” says Mick Wydra, Membership Director. “We have stools at the bar and four high-top tables with chairs. Then, on the other side of the room—away from the bar—we have a big, stone fireplace and seating areas with couches and big lounge chairs.”
Building Personal Flair
A common goal among club managers is to make the bar area a comfortable alternative to the club’s more formal dining options. However, simply adding a recliner or puffy sofa will not suffice. More is needed to establish a homey and inviting space without compromising the club’s personality.
A consistent club atmosphere is crucial. The Detroit Athletic Club in Detroit, Mich., makes a conscious effort to maintain its classic, professional charm within the popular Tap Room. “The Tap Room is a warm bar, and it has a somewhat masculine feel to it,” describes Paul Marazzo, Clubhouse Manager. “It has all leather furniture, and we made sure it was the top-quality leather.”
Along with the fine leather seating, the Tap Room exudes a strong sense of professionalism and sophistication, despite the casual attire allowed in the off-season. “Our bartenders are truly mixologists and they know their trade very well,” says Marazzo. “We’ve brought back classic cocktails like classic martinis, mint juleps, mojitos and Tom Collins, and our bartenders build all of these cocktails from scratch. The room has a professional, innkeeper flair to it.”
On the other side of the spectrum, the social and spirited ethos of the Estero Club at the Vines, in Estero, Fla., was the inspiration for the design of that club’s Mulligan’s Bar. An octagonal-shaped bar planted directly in the middle of the room makes mingling simple. “With the round bar, if you see someone over on the other side of the bar you can make your way over to them and say hi,” says Andrea Bach, Assistant Club Manager.
While Mulligan’s Bar is a hot spot in itself, other clubs that focus more heavily on dining use the bar areas primarily for pre- or post-dinner gathering spots. In these clubs, the bar location must be convenient and complementary to the dining rooms. At the Birchwood Country Club in Westport, Conn., the dining space has two levels: a downstairs dining room and an upstairs cocktail lounge overlooking diners below. A one-server rectangular bar with six stools accommodates members who precede dinner with cocktails. “We use different types of candles and flowers in the bar,” says Daniel Brophy, General Manager. “The bar is all wood and it’s a warm, cozy atmosphere up there, which makes it friendly.”
Finishing Touches
While most club managers agree that their bar and lounge areas are designed to be casual, these areas have a more elegant feel than conventional sports bars. Thus, darker, more mood-inducing décor has become a popular design tactic.
Utah’s Glenwild prides itself on blending informal and chic together. “The best way to describe it is ‘mountain casual elegance,’ ” says Wydra. “There are a lot of dark textures, dark stains, beautiful stone fireplaces, leather and plaid furniture.” Many clubs are following this muted, mood-setting trend as they move away from whitewashed woods and focus on rich mahogany and cherry wood finishes.
For a greater effect, appropriate artwork further complements a bar’s personality. The dark-paneled wood bar in the Detroit Athletic Club’s Tap Room frames the focal point of the room: a large, rich-toned painting depicting the signing of the Treaty of Lancaster by American Indians and the British in the 18th century. “The painting on the back of the bar sets the atmosphere,” says Michael Calvert, Sommelier. “It’s the first thing you notice when you walk into the room. You get a sense of a nice, old-fashioned atmosphere.”
Other clubs use art to add branding or personalization to the room. The wall décor in the Founder’s Room at the Golf Club of Avon brings the club’s history to the surface and instills a sense of pride in members. “We brought in a lot of old photos of the club before it was remodeled, pictures of the golf course and pictures of past presidents,” describes Young. Also mounted is a plaque showcasing 35-year members, with new members’ names continuously added and honored each year. “This plaque really made the room about the club’s history,” says Young. C&RB
Summing It Up
• Bars are ideal settings for establishing a club’s brand and promoting its history, through photos, membership plaques and other attention-getting artwork.
• Mahogany and cherry are good wood choices and leather is always a nice touch for clubs looking to complement rich color palettes.
• Vary the types of seating
areas to ensure everyone is comfortable. Mix it up between stools and couches, and intimate areas and tables that can accommodate larger groups.
How to Preserve Good Wines—and Boost By-the-Glass Profits
To increase beverage sales within their bar areas, many clubs are installing “wine preservation systems” that allow them to offer a wide range of wines by the glass, without worrying about waste. These systems work to re-seal a bottle after it has been opened, protecting against spoilage if the entire bottle is not consumed. This gives clubs more flexibility to vary and expand the wine options they offer and pique members’ interest in new wines, and at the same time make it possible for members to enjoy their time in the bar to the fullest.
After the Cedar Rapids Country Club in Cedar Rapids, Ia., purchased such a preservation system this past winter, the club began reaping the benefits almost immediately. “Before, we were very reluctant to open a lot of bottles of wine, because there would be some waste,” says Randy Harper, General Manager. “This system has allowed us to freely open a bottle at a member’s request.”
The club’s average wine-by-the-glass price, previously about $6 per glass, has increased to $10 per glass this year. “Because of the preservation system, we’re more comfortable opening a $40 or $50 wine and selling it for $10 a glass,” explains Harper. “Basically, all of our wines are now available by the glass, and it has been tremendously received.”
Similarly, a wine preservation system has helped the Golf Club of Avon in Avon, Conn., offer 35 wines by the glass, and ultimately increase wine sales between 30 and 40 percent in the past few years. “It has also helped our bottle sales because people have an opportunity to buy a $12 glass of wine, where they may not have bought an $80 bottle of wine before,” says Kenneth Young, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer. “They enjoy the glass and then next time they come in they may buy the bottle, because they don’t have a fear of buying the bottle and not liking it.”
Bellying Up: Food That Calls for a Toast
In addition to décor, special menu options can increase a bar’s popularity. Offering a number of food items designated solely for the bar area can increase the amount of time—and money— spent in the bar, and perhaps even prompt dining occasions by members who would not be inclined to “eat at the club.”
When the Detroit Athletic Club introduced its extensive wine-by-the-glass and classic cocktail lists, Michael Calvert, Sommelier, worked with the club’s Executive Chef, Kevin Brennan, to develop a tapas menu to pair with wines. The new offerings were introduced this summer, to increase traffic in the Tap Room during these slower months.
“This is something that has been coming up in restaurants all over,” explains Calvert. “We tried to remain traditional to the tapas theme as far as styles of food, using olive oil, and offering warm and cold dishes. After the chef gave me the ingredients, I chose wines that matched up with the food.” One of the popular pairings is the soup sampler (soup de jour, lobster bisque and barbecued pork soup) paired with a light-bodied white wine from Spain.
At Birchwood Country Club, cocktails upstairs are accompanied by complimentary appetizers that vary each evening. “When we have a special lobster or steak night, the beginning is focused on the bar area, and we offers hors d’oeuvres that complement the dinner,” says Daniel Brophy, General Manager. “We’ll have shrimp, clams on the half shell, oysters, different cheeses, calamari, Swedish meatballs, smoked salmon, and that kind of thing.”
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