Private Club Radio Show

381: Navigating Chef Challenges w/ Nicholas Gora, CCM

August 30, 2024 • Denny Corby

Share episode

Food and beverage success insights from Nicholas Gora, General Manager of Indian Hills Country Club in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 
Join us as we dive into Nicholas's journey of overcoming the challenge of finding the right chef, a quest that saw him navigating through four chefs in six years. Discover how the perfect culinary leader led to a remarkable 40% increase in business, all through a blend of culinary prowess and the ability to connect with club members while understanding the business side of operations. Get ready to learn about the essential qualities that make a chef indispensable in the private golf and country club scene.

This episode also explores the broader transformation of Indian Hills Country Club. Hear about the successful transition of an internal candidate to head chef and the profound impact of a $6 million renovation on membership growth. From new dining facilities to enhanced tennis courts and a state-of-the-art fitness center, find out how these upgrades, paired with a member-friendly reapplication process, have driven new memberships and brought back former members. Join us for an episode packed with valuable insights on club management, personal growth, and the thrilling challenges that come with the territory.

Follow us on the socials

Private Club Radio Instagram
Private Club Radio Linkedin

Denny Corby Instagram
Denny Corby Linkedin

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Private Club Radio Show Podcast, the industry's choice for news trends, updates and conversations all in the world of private golf and country clubs. Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting out in the industry, welcome. We are glad you are here. We're glad you're here. This is the show where we go over any and all the topics related to private golf and country clubs and I'm chatting with a friend of mine, nicholas Gora. Nick Gora, general manager of Indian Hills Country Club in Tuscaloosa, alabama, and we talk about a bunch of different topics, but this one, more specifically, a little bit food and beverage related, on the hiring and retaining talented chefs. It's a big issue, it's a real big issue. I don't think I realized how big it was, that's what she said, but it started. More big issue. I don't think I realized how big it was, that's what she said, but it started more when I was chatting back with Steve Salzman, carlton Woods, and it's just been picking up more and more. A lot of the conversations I've been having is around the chefs, it's around food and, yeah, and Nick and I talk about that, you know the hiring and retaining of talented chefs, the importance of connecting with members and having the chef and the food connect with the members and yeah, it's just super important. So, super fortunate chatting with our friend Nick Gora we're going to talk to him in a second. Before we do, a quick little thank you to some of our show partners.

Speaker 1:

Kenneth's Member Vetting the member vetting process really hasn't changed for many years and as people are more transient in their lifestyles and moving around, it's important that we know who the people are that we're letting into our club. So if you want to learn a little bit more about some upgraded, some better member vetting, head on over to membervettingcom. Set up a call with Paul Danker, one of the team, and they will get you all sorted out. We have our friends Golf Life Navigators. It's Zillow meets eHarmony for golf enthusiasts. So if you would like to be on a platform where you can be in front of people who are looking to find their dream golf courses, their dream golf retirement communities and homes it's marketing without marketing, advertising without advertising head on over to golflifenavigatorscom. Set up a call with one of the team, see if you guys are a good fit, and also myself.

Speaker 1:

Denny Corby the Denny Corby experience. There's excitement, there's mystery, there's magic, mind reading and comedy. It's a really good time. I've been on ABC, nbc, the CW, fox, the Huckabee Show. Penn Teller Fool Us could be show pen and teller fool us. Your members are in for a really good time. Uh, if you want to learn more, head on over to dannycorbycom. Enough about this, let's get on with the show. Private club radio listeners. Let's welcome my friend and soon to be yours, gm of the indian hills country club in toskaloosa, alabama. Let's welcome nicholas gora. Um, no, I'm happy you came on. I'm glad we're here talking. Uh, you spent a lot of time in Louisiana. Is that where you were born and raised?

Speaker 2:

I was born in Texas, but I grew up in Baton Rouge.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay. And then you were at the Country Club of Louisiana for quite a while, about 11 years yes, sir, about 11 years. Then you were at Metairie with Ken Hamrick, which was a fantastic club, love it there, great club. There. Then you were did some other stents some other places now at indian hills, and when we were chatting, um, I think a lot of the topics we were talking about came up around food and beverage.

Speaker 1:

What's um in in the club that you're at, had a little bit of issues with the food and beverage, trying to get good chefs, um, good, good people, in there, and it's just not you, it's, I mean, it's everybody. Uh, and I don't know in what order all the all the episodes are going to come out, but I good people in there and it's just not you, I mean, it's everybody, and I don't know in what order all the episodes are going to come out. But I was talking with Herb Levy from the Magic Castle. He transformed that whole institution there. So I can't wait for that. But what was going on with you guys? I mean, because what you're up now? 40%.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, our food and beverage business has increased exponentially since we finished the renovation and we've got a very talented chef uh at the club and he's just uh, he gets it. Um, when I first started the club, we had some very talented people in the kitchen. We had a very talented chef Uh. We've gone through a few over the years but we finally have a chef that is both talented, gets the business side of it and he's engaging. And, frankly, in private clubs, if you don't have a connection with the membership and you don't engage them and make them feel like they're in their living room, you're not going to last there very long. You can be the most talented chef in the world and if you don't get the membership, the membership doesn't get you and there's not a connectivity there. It kind of limits your options and probably the timeline you're going to stay at a club Uh you've?

Speaker 1:

you've went through four chefs in six years. We went through four chefs in six years. Yes, Do you think it's because they had a little agoraphobia?

Speaker 2:

No, I mean I think that we've had some very talented people and it was just a matter of finding one that was a good fit. I mean, I think all these jobs and clubs, you have to find a good fit and you can be very talented and not get along with the membership, or the membership not understand what you're going for, and it just doesn't last very long.

Speaker 1:

So the, the ones that didn't last did they tend to not come from clubs or or did they also come from clubs and just it just dropped.

Speaker 2:

Only two of them came from clubs before and we we use search companies for some, we didn't use search companies for others. But I mean I found I found usually people come from clubs, they have a better rapport with the membership, they know what's being asked of them. But I mean we've done interviews with you know, a cooking demonstration and an interview afterwards, and I've had chefs that put out a great meal and just didn't connect with people. Or during the interview process they were very cut and dry, very corporate Bob to them.

Speaker 2:

I think one was asked how they felt about modifications and to-go orders and offsite catering. He's like, nah, I really just want to do restaurant work and I'm like because country club, being a chef in a country club is harder than being a chef at a restaurant, cause you have to do everything. You're doing service at a pool kitchen, you're doing service in a restaurant, you're doing service in the golf course, you're doing catering events, you're serving food off property to go food. It's a little bit everything and every day is a little different. So, uh, in many ways it's much harder than just being a restaurant chef.

Speaker 1:

I lost my train of thought there for a second. What were some of the? Were there any telltale signs? Or from now, I mean you've. I can't even imagine how many people you interviewed. Can you see the writings on the wall or what are some like red flags? When you were interviewing that you were like, oh, like X, y and Z, you're like probably not going to be a good fit.

Speaker 2:

I'll give you a perfect example. We, when we placed the chef before this one, I always give them an assistant in the kitchen to come in cook for a group of members of the committee and if they don't ask the assistant for help or don't communicate with that individual in the kitchen while they're essentially in the interview process, I'm doing an exit interview with that guy to see how he interacted with them, and you know that's a telltale sign of how they're going to manage their team and how they're going to engage their staff when they get the job there.

Speaker 2:

What are hiring green flags? Easy conversationalist, someone who can pick up a conversation about nothing. Green flag for me would probably be somebody who doesn't do a lot of job hopping. I mean, I've seen resumes of people who've had 15 jobs in 20 years. That's scary. Somebody who has three to four years, 10 years at clubs or restaurants, that says that they want to get in, they want to solve the problem and when they are ready to move on, they're ready to move on. But people who job hop is a huge red flag.

Speaker 1:

So like three, four, five years is fine, Anything less. You're a little hesitant there.

Speaker 2:

I mean people who have nine months stints at jobs. That's scary. I mean, if you get a job anywhere, you're not really figuring out how you can impact the operation as a whole for the first several months. You're just finding out where things are. It takes a little while to get your teeth in, especially if you're doing a renovation or opening up a new restaurant or revamping your entire catering menu. You got to kind of figure out your clientele base before you can do that. I can think of a restaurant that I know in town that opened up a while back and obviously they didn't check out the market or understand their clientele base before they wrote the menu price, the menu and opened a restaurant. Because you got to get the city and you got to get the people you're trying to take care of to be able to take care of.

Speaker 1:

Were they way too expensive? Was it? Was it too cheap? What was the?

Speaker 2:

they were tremendously overpriced and the food didn't match this city and you know you get to see the byproduct of it. Unfortunately, they'd had to spend a lot of money to do that, so define define overpriced um stakes that you'd normally see for $48 going for 65, $75, $75,. You have to know who you're catering to?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's like Ruth Chris money. If you're not at that level, then yeah. And was the quality good or just all?

Speaker 2:

not, no, all not good, at least from my experiences.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so now you've had new chef for how long?

Speaker 2:

We actually promoted from within, so we promoted our sous chef who had been with the club for a while.

Speaker 2:

I made him the executive chef and he took it as a personal challenge and he has excelled exceptionally. His name is Paul Kerr and he he has helped our social media presence out. He does everyed exceptionally. His name is Paul Kerr and he has helped our social media presence out. He does every other week. He talks about his feature and he goes on and we do Instagram posts and he connects with people. He gets a lot of likes and he draws people into the restaurant Once they're in the restaurant. He does a terrific job of coming out of the kitchen Because in the world of celebrity chefs, everybody wants to shake hands with the chef and talk about food and he gets that and goes out there and talks to the people good, bad or ugly. He wants to know what he's doing right, what he's doing wrong, and that ability for him to connect with people is probably the biggest part of the success there.

Speaker 1:

How long has Paul been there for?

Speaker 2:

Paul has been here two and a half three years now. Okay, he's so. He's a stable part of our culture and, if I have it in my way, he'll be here until he decides to retire.

Speaker 1:

So, so. So he's been, he's, he's seen the comings and the goings. He's been a part of all of that. What was that process like, starting to now? When did you, when did he now come into the conversation? So you know, because what did he approach you? Did you approach him? What was that like? Or was it just finally, like, dude, can you do this? What was that like?

Speaker 2:

Well, we had our previous chef leave and, like most clubs, you say, hey, are we going to hire a search firm to find a new chef? And we talked about it and we had used a search firm two years ago to hire another chef and actually one of our sous chefs came up and said you need to talk to him about taking the job. He's a good fit. They have really works well together. He's well respected, he's very talented in the kitchen and he came up to the office next day. He said he wanted to throw his name in the hat and we brought it to the board and the search committee and they said that sounds terrific.

Speaker 2:

It was next to no downtime for us and for search committee and they said that sounds terrific. It was next to no downtime for us and for the club and he just slid into the slot very well Once he became acclimated with his new responsibilities. I mean, it's a whole new beast from what it used to be and with the opening of a new restaurant at the club he's not only taken the club to the next level from the culinary side, but from a sales point of view and profitability point of view. He gets the business side of the club as well.

Speaker 1:

That's good. Ooh, that is fun and everyone's been happy. Things have been good, going swimmingly.

Speaker 2:

It's going swimmingly. I don't think everyone is always had ever really happy, but 99 of people are very happy that that's.

Speaker 1:

That's a good number. That's a good number and has has he been a part of. I'm assuming this, among other things, has been why fmb is up 40 also. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I think that um tuscalo, it's a college town. We love the sports here, but we want approachable food. If I put out 100 fillets with foie gras on top of it, I might get a lot of foie gras back. It's not a foie gras crowd, but it's people that want strong seafood base. They want to get approachable food that they can pronounce. But they've been very open minded to the things he's put forth on the menu and people think Country Club and actually think elevated, fancy food, but at the end of the day, nobody's eating lobster seven days a week. Every once in a while you want a great cheeseburger or a great piece of fish. I want a great cheeseburger or a great piece of fish, and I think he's done an excellent job of presenting menus to membership and to our catering operation that people go for, that people are engaging to.

Speaker 1:

And now going back to the club a little bit. You went through a big remodel, right.

Speaker 2:

Yep, we hired Chambers USA to do a redesign of the club. We built a new restaurant, new bar, covered our back patio, built a fitness and wellness center on the second floor, added two more hydrogrid and two more hard courts of tennis, LED lights, redid the parking lot monument sign. Okay, what didn't you do? The 19th hole, which we're doing right now?

Speaker 1:

How much was all of that coming out to?

Speaker 2:

It was a little over $6 million on the first part and the 19th hole is going to be about $600,000. It's a paint pot of6 million on the first part and the 19th hole is going to be about $600,000.

Speaker 1:

It's a paintball buff. We got a lot for our money. Yeah, and did you assess the members? What was that whole process? We don't believe in assessing.

Speaker 2:

First thing, if you're going to do something, you have to ask people for buy-in and what they want. So we did a number of focus groups with the membership and the big draws for them were, of course, a casual dining restaurant worked, the golf course, updated tennis facilities and, of course, a huge chunk of it was a fitness and wellness center. After that we presented the plan and instead of assessing them, we put either a $39 or $79 capital fee together and when we present the due structure to incoming members, that number's already in there. People don't get sticker shock.

Speaker 1:

So they only got hit for an extra $30, $40, $50 a month. Yeah, that's a steal a century.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we've seen the membership numbers, for not only are we seeing people return to the club that were formerly members, but we've seen a huge influx of members new members come into the club. I think in the last three months we've picked up 45, 51-ish people, and when we hit 700, we're going to start a wait list.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was the next part I was going to say. You guys, you were telling me you got like 40 new members in three months and that's amazing that you had members leave and then come back. Now did they have to re-apply? What was the process like for the members now coming back?

Speaker 2:

to be members could reapply. They wouldn't have to worry about their letters of reference. They could come back to the club with no new initiation fee, not back paying any dues, and just resume their due structure at their current level. We recently changed that. So they have to reapply and there's a $500 membership application fee, but they can hop back in with no new initiation fee one time.

Speaker 1:

That's not bad. That's not bad, wait. You mean like if people want to come back to clubs, they make them pay back dues? I've seen it, yes, sir, wait. Meaning like if you left for three years, you'd have to owe three years of dues on top of a re, on top of an initiation fee or a percentage of dues or a capital fee for the whole time they were going to return.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's just. In my opinion, that is a barrier of entry.

Speaker 1:

Somebody in.

Speaker 2:

the first rule of doing business with people is be easy to do business with. If you're going to make it a hurdle to rejoin a club beyond $500 or an application, I don't want to do business with you, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And why 700 people for the membership cap.

Speaker 2:

At one time the club had about 900 members 20 years ago and for the size of our facility, 700 feels like a really good number for the board and myself. If you get more than 700 members, you're waiting on tables, you're waiting to get on tennis courts. We don't do tee times.

Speaker 1:

I was just going to say you don't do tee times, no, you just show up.

Speaker 2:

You just show up and go play golf.

Speaker 1:

And there's no issues.

Speaker 2:

Nope, If you have more than about a five, some just give us a heads up on it, but we at this size, we don't have any issues and on a Friday we might do 120 rounds of golf, but it hasn't caused a problem at this point If we picked up another 200 members, I don't think we could do it with no T-times.

Speaker 1:

Wow, wow. So you must have some very happy members. I think most of them are pretty happy. I hope they are. What, what? What was the consensus like during those kind of six years of little uh wishy-washy with the chef, like what was? Was the? Was the whole like? What was that like then? Not not to get like you know, like like dark or anything but like was membership still happy? Like is it? Is it just getting better? What's what's the flow back when?

Speaker 2:

I first got there I didn't really feel like the club had an identity and now that we've cycled out, we waited a very long time to start addressing the membership issue. And our membership is getting older and older. Uh, I think that in the last six years we've lowered the median age of the membership from 67 to 54. So we've seen a lot of younger members. I walked around member guests last year I felt like an old man. A lot of young new members who want to enjoy the club, want their family to enjoy the club, have joined. And you know clubs have changed a lot in the last 28 years I've been doing this. It used to be just the dad playing golf and enjoying the 19th hole, but now I've got to worry about keeping mom happy at the pool, the gym active, the place for the kids to spend time that their parents are comfortable with, and the whole family unit's got to get a little bit of love to be a part of the club.

Speaker 1:

What's the word? It's been thrown around like generational um accommodations or like generational fun, like it has to appeal because now you have members I'm sure you have members who are in their 30s and early 40s.

Speaker 2:

Grandma and grandpa are going to be coming and they want to have to feel welcome as well and enjoy the facilities and the process of the whole thing we have to be a little bit of everything to everyone, and one thing that I think makes Indian Hills unique is I'll have members in their 60s and 70s hanging out with members in their 30s and if you come to a Wednesday night dinner you'll see all these different groups you wouldn't typically see hanging out with each other, all hanging out and having a great time. It is a very laid back membership. We don't have a lot of rules posted all over the place. It's fairly self-modulating and they're nice people, so I think it's a good fit and a good mix of people right now that is awesome.

Speaker 1:

That is so cool.

Speaker 1:

That is so cool. I was the episode I just released today with Kane Kane Pappas. She works for FDU School of School up in Jersey and we were talking because she's also big into cars and we were talking about like how like car meets you get. You have people from all over, it doesn't matter the backgrounds, whatever, but you just get people around. A common thing it's just the conversations, the flow, just how much fun it is.

Speaker 1:

There's a book in my head that I want to write. I've sort of started it, but not really and it's pretty much the same thing. It's called the Vacation Mindset, because I was in Mexico, maybe like 10 years ago, and I just remember playing volleyball with the most eclectic group of people, like it was just the wildest, like you name it every size, race, gender, color, it was just like this hodgepodge and we were all just having an absolute blast. And I thought to myself afterwards, like what are the odds if we were not on vacation, if we were just out somewhere, the odds of all of us being nice to each other and just being like having this much. It's just something about being on vacation. You're just so much more open. So that's just so neat, that's so cool. Excellent, what's been some of your secret sauce to success in management?

Speaker 2:

Hire good people and get the hell out of their way. You know, I just we've had some department head turnover in the last six years. Not a tremendous amount. But our golf course superintendent, kevin Holyfield, who is phenomenal I think he's been at the club 25, 26 years. He's just a really good fit. You know, we've had some. Keith Swindle, who was our director of tennis, has been at the club 32 years and he's got an amazing culture down there and an amazing staff. So I think we've been blessed with a lot of really great people and I think a testament to that is the length of time they stay at the club. But my best management advice of anything is give them guidance, give them anything you can help them do to make their job better, but then get out of their way.

Speaker 1:

How do you recover from a bad day at work?

Speaker 2:

Bad day at work. I try not to bring it home with me, but I think that after enough time your anger, your frustration will kind of fizzle out. I find it more important that the next day when I go to work, before I leave my driveway, I kick the AC on full blast and I sit in my car and I give myself five or ten minutes just to get my head in a good place. Because if you just go right back in to work with whatever frustrations you left work with the previous day, your days then get real bumpy and people aren't going to connect with you and it's just going big bad situation. So I think to diffuse, give it time and give yourself time, but try not to bring it home.

Speaker 1:

And you're talking to your young self. You're talking to Nick, who's just about to start at the Country Club of Louisiana. What advice are you giving him?

Speaker 2:

what advice are you giving them? Stay at a club as long as you feel like you're doing good and then move on to something different.

Speaker 1:

Go a little bit deeper on that.

Speaker 2:

Well, I am awful when I'm not challenged. I mean the club business is pretty much like a Rubik's Cube that somebody took the stickers off of. Awful when I'm not challenged. I mean the club business is pretty much like a Rubik's cube that somebody took the stickers off of, and if I don't feel like I'm challenged or we're working on something new, I am awful.

Speaker 2:

My wife and I will go on vacation and after about three days I'm like looking for things to fix in the hotel. It's terrible. But I think that having a work environment that is challenging and I don't care how big or small the challenge is, it has to be challenging and you got to kind of enjoy tinkering with things. But as soon as you get to a point that you fixed all that you think you can fix to a club or improved anything that you think you can improve at a club, if I start stalling out and getting bored, I've got to find a new challenge. Luckily, the last six years have had plenty of challenges. I mean, between two renovations and COVID and staff turnover, I mean I'm not bored.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, mr Gora, I want to thank you so much for coming on. It means the world. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Danny, thank you means the world. Thank you so much, Danny.

Speaker 1:

thank you for having me have a great day, sir, you too. Hope you all enjoyed that episode. Agoraphobia I kill myself. Hope you all enjoyed that episode. If you did, you know what I'm going to ask. I hope you like, share, subscribe, follow. Whatever platform you're following on, Make sure you are subscribed to get all the latest updates that we have. Subscribe to follow us on our social media channels. We're all over the place. Anything you can do to help move our channel forward costs nothing. It means the absolute world. Thank you so much. That was this episode, Nick. Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate you, Nick, and you all listeners as well. That's this episode. Until next time, catch y'all on the Flippity Flip.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Denny Corby

Host