Private Club Radio Show

430: Turning Low Attendance into High Impact Experiences w/ Chef Andrew Haapala

• Denny Corby

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What happens when the turnout is low, the plan isn’t working, and canceling the event feels like the easiest option?

If you’re Chef Andrew Haapala, you pivot. You turn the dining room into a chef’s table. You bring the members into the kitchen. And you make it an experience they’ll never forget.

In this episode, Andrew, Executive Chef at The Country Club of Virginia, shares how one slow night became an unexpected win—not just for the members, but for his team.

We talk about:

  • How creative thinking turns a problem into an opportunity
  • Why showing up for the few can mean more than serving the many
  • The importance of having a team that’s ready to adapt on the fly
  • What leadership looks like behind the line—especially when plans change

Andrew’s leadership style is thoughtful, real, and rooted in trust. This episode is a great listen for chefs, F&B pros, and any club leader who knows that the best experiences sometimes come from the least expected moments.









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Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show this place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show this episode.

Speaker 1:

I am chatting with my new friend, andrew Hapala, who is the executive chef at the Country Club of Virginia and we have a great story, he and I. It's so funny because when I was looking at his history at where he's been, we just missed each other at all of his clubs, like either I just performed there and then he left or vice versa. So really funny, very, very strange. But he has been at some amazing clubs and I'm bringing him on because he did something really cool, really unique, and they were doing a chef's teaching dinner and they didn't have a lot of signups, but they did not cancel, they still kept on and they turned it into something great, something successful. And that is what I love is stories like that where people flip the script and do things and don't cancel, because I don't think members like it and the ones who did want to show up still want to have a good time, so we're just going to jump right into it. I'll let him tell you the whole story, but it is really great. Before we get to it, big thanks to some of our show partners Concert Golf Partners, kenneth's Member, vetting Members First, and Club Capital Group, as well as myself.

Speaker 1:

The Denny Corby Experience. There's excitement, there's mystery. Also, there's magic, mind reading and comedy. To learn more, head on over to dennycorbycom. Enough about that, let's get right into this amazing episode. Private Club Radio listeners. Let's welcome to the show. Executive Chef Andrew Hapala. So let's set the scene.

Speaker 1:

You had an event planned, a cooking class, right, correct, and you were expecting 50, 60, 100 and some people, which is like the average. You had the ballroom set up, the cameras ready, the whole deal. But then was it? The numbers weren't there. Like how far in advance did you know that this wasn't going to happen? Because I think a lot of clubs one second, I think a lot of clubs at that point would have just called it. They would have, you know, just told people like hey, it's off the people who didn't sign up and moved on. But you instead flipped the script, turned it into something even better. You made it a night people will actually remember and I love that, because oftentimes clubs will cancel things if they don't have a big turnout, and I think it upsets the people who did want to show up, who did want to come and do something. So when did you realize? Oh, we might not have the turnout we expected and was canceling ever on the table?

Speaker 2:

Or were you already thinking like, ok, how do we make this work anyway? Yes, absolutely. I think cancellation would have been on the table. We a lot of times we don't get all of our reservations until basically the week before the event anyway, right? So as it was sort of early in the week, a Wednesday is kind of early for a member event like this.

Speaker 2:

Uh, as it was sort of early in the week of Wednesday, it's kind of early for a member event like this. So the week prior we send out that final sort of e-blast hey, you know, cooking demonstration, west ballroom with dinner, and then just nothing happened over the weekend. I don't know if it was just a bad week, if it was people out of town, you know, it was sort of one of those things. So, um, it was that point. I'd been kind of mulling it through the back of my head for a while, just knowing that. You know, we were at 10 to 12 people for a while, like for as long as I think the event had been open, it had only been 10 to 12 people, which is odd for one of these classes especially. We have one next Wednesday, that's at 56 people right now.

Speaker 1:

And what goes into say in, like your normal cooking classes, like when you've done them in the past, the one coming up, what does it normally look like?

Speaker 2:

So normally the cooking class, um, there's a couple of different styles, but this one would have been basically myself up on, uh, in front of the group, um tables of eight, um, with a screen, a camera that looks down on top of the cutting board so they can see my hands working, um, as, as we're preparing whatever it is we're preparing, whether it's, you know, dressing, stocks, sauces, soups this one was going to be, it was sort of it was kind of a joke, because it may be this was, it was a chicken cooking class, so it may have just people may not have been interested in it.

Speaker 2:

So you know, you live and you learn, but you know it was interesting and it's usually about an hour and then dinner comes out. So I'll do something and it'll kind of incorporate what the first course for the dinner is and then as I work through, like deboning the chicken and this is how you prepare an airline breast, then maybe that would be the second course. We'd roll through an event like that, so being able to switch it up and just say, hey, y'all just want to come in and have a chef's table, come on in and, like you know, we'd be happy to have you. Um, we let, we gave them the option. I guess it was the Saturday before when we just didn't get that boost and and uh reservations that we wanted yeah.

Speaker 1:

How did your team react when you were like, hey guys, uh, we're doing it in the kitchen instead? Were they instantly on board? Did you get a couple? Are you serious looks, or was it really? They didn't have a choice. It was more about making the members happy.

Speaker 2:

Oh well, I think, uh, that's fair. There's always a little bit of the latter, right, but, um, you know, I think it's. It's always fun to do these and it was. It would have been like, given January was a, was a crazy month for a lot of reasons, um, whether a lot of people were on vacation or just we were kind of a lot of other things going on at the same time, where so normally slow January turned into a very, very busy January. Um, in the back of my mind, I knew that we had had already have a chef's table on the books for later on in the month, um, along with another kitchen cocktail party. So a, getting the team prepared for those on our terms, so to speak, makes the whole experience better.

Speaker 2:

Front of the House loves doing them because it's kind of neat, it's easy. The kitchen it would be the first one our banquet chef had seen, I think, if I remember correctly. So he was excited to see it, yeah, and the sous chefs always just want to see something cool and fun. So for the most part, I think you know, maybe day of, we regretted it a little bit when we had a, we had a pretty, we had a pretty large party for lunch right before it. So it turns the kit. The flip in the kitchen can be a little bit hectic, but you know, at the end of the day they're like, oh, that was a, that was an awesome dinner. And I was like, yeah, that's what these are about. So I think we did the two two chefs tables in the last two months and a kitchen cocktail party.

Speaker 1:

So Kitchen's really being used. Now is the kitchen? Does it? Is it in the works for an upgrade? Cause, now would be the time to start like pitching it, guys. If you really want this to be killer, imagine what we can do with a brand new kitchen uh, yes and no, we have a lot of projects coming down the line.

Speaker 2:

Um, we're in the middle of renovating one kitchen entirely right now. Um, so it is closed with that team actually augmenting the team over here at the west hampton clubhouse. Yeah, so it's, it's in the it's in the run, but it's definitely a few steps back. Yeah, it's in, it's in the run, but it's definitely a few steps back. It's in pretty good shape. As far as kitchens go, we're very fortunate to have an active capital program that allows us to keep equipment fresh, clean and well, just new, for the most part every five to six years. So the kitchen's set up well six years.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, the kitchen set up well, because, because sometimes that could be a hard sell when doing remodels, which, for me, I never thought about that, like to me, I just always uh, I was I forget which gm I was talking to, I don't even know if it was for a, for a private club radio episode. He was just saying like, oh, it was a tough to get the board to you know, or the members to come on board with the kitchen, like that's where the food is you serious? Uh, so because. And then, like you start hearing some more stories like, oh, I guess that could be difficult because they don't always see it, but you, it sounds like you guys have always done these kind of kitcheny things and bringing people to the back. So you know, yeah, so that that's, that's, that's, oh, that's so cool, so logistically, uh, what went into transforming the kitchen into an event space and maybe not even for this one in particular, but like when you do stuff like what goes into transforming your kitchen into a full on event space?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, a lot of cleaning right off the bat. You know you just want it to be as fresh as it can possibly be and it's a busy kitchen. It's open seven days a week, basically from seven o'clock till whenever the last party goes out, so you know there's stuff on the grill every single day. The fryers are getting used all the time, so it's one of those things like just a fresh coat of stainless steel polish goes a long way. But then we're fortunate in that it's a very open floor plan. We've got a couple of pillars in there, but everything else is on wheels so we can roll stuff in and out of the kitchen. The equipment itself was designed with this in mind, so it actually has little tabs that we can connect the tabletops to. There's a lot of it's. It's over the years it has been formed this way over more chefs than just myself, I should say. So, um, we have a pretty long history of doing these.

Speaker 1:

It's just we just make it a little nicer every time were there any other weird adjustments that had to be made that was different from the like the original format, besides moving it to, like the kitchen? Like did you keep the same menu, like was all that still the same, or were there other like adjustments that had to be made?

Speaker 2:

Not for the menu itself. Yeah, so the menu itself changed completely, knowing that we would be going into this year actively sort of seeking chef's tables. I'd been drafting menus for the better part of the last three months. So just being able to talk to the guests a little bit in advance and see, kind of I can do a little bit of research and find out where they, where they frequent and stuff like that and prepare a menu around that um is super helpful. But basically I can just pull those dishes off of the other chef's table menus that I've written um both in the past and for the future and create a pretty nice meal pretty fast.

Speaker 1:

So did any members walk in and be like wait, we're going in the kitchen tonight?

Speaker 2:

uh, one of them was a surprise because their date didn't tell them.

Speaker 1:

So I thought I was gonna learn tonight. And then they're like you're smack in the middle of the kitchen I was gonna learn how to cook a chicken what? What did you end up putting on the menu?

Speaker 2:

uh, instead oh, gosh for that one. Uh, we did a chicken and waffles, so oh oh it was a play on chicken and waffles.

Speaker 2:

Basically it's an angel wing, so you debone a chicken wing and then stuff it with, basically, a chicken sausage. It's with rice noodles and peppers, onions, garlic, a little bit of shoyu, just super nice stuff. And then it's breaded and panko fried. That was served with a little sort of chili salad on top of a wonton waffle. So it was just sort of a play on that. Um, I think we did like I said. We've done three or four since then. So we've done three all, uh, two and a and a and the kitchen cocktail party. Um, we did a, uh, venison shank for them, messenchenk for them. We did a trout dish with truffle wood, ear mushrooms, some other stuff. So I wish I had them in front of me?

Speaker 1:

No, I mean, this is like literally my mouth is watering, like it's not even funny. So what do you prefer, like performer to performer? Like the big groups are fun. The small groups, I think, are even more fun and intimate, just because you can almost connect with each person almost on a different level. But I do like how sometimes the big shows are fun because you can still connect but you can almost just look out and people just feel like you're connecting with them. So I know how the big shows can be easy and fun. The small shows can be easy and fun. They each have their difficulties. Which do you prefer?

Speaker 2:

I'll tell you, the small shows are fun, or the small tables, I should say, are fun, because you get to put a little bit more love into each dish, right. Preparing food for 12 people, you can put a lot more steps and spend a little bit more time on it, whereas for large groups it's a lot. You have to dumb it down is the wrong way to say it, but you know you. Just you have to be able to serve a lot of people dinner fast, right? So you, you lose something on our end and the backside, I should say, whereas either way, you sort of end up with raving fans at the end of the day, which is what we want. Um, so being able to sell a future events or just see how you know how they're enjoying each restaurant, which ones they, they uh, frequent more often and why stuff like that is, is really good information to have. Not just you know. For me, as, as a chef like you, get to one on more one-on-one time with a smaller group for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if if another club is facing a similar situation you know they have a similar thing. You know a chef's dinner, a teaching demonstration, with a low turnout, potential cancellation. What advice would you give them?

Speaker 2:

You know you should try and do something for them. It's good for the staff, right? You're this time of year if it's slow, it's one of those things. You want staff to have hours. So, even if it's not a chef's table, if you can, if you can pivot and do something interesting and fun for the group of members that want to be there, that want to participate, then you probably you should figure something out. Even if it's a more, it can still be a cooking class, it could still be a wine dinner. It just means that you know you can put a little bit more love into it. You know it may not be quite as nice at P&L at the end, but it's. It's more about for clubs. I don't think it's all about that, I guess.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Do you? Do you think sometimes clubs get too caught up in the big numbers when the reality is, you know, smaller, more creative experiences could sometimes be better sometimes, yeah, absolutely, if it's already a busy month, I can see it'd be a challenge to do something for 12 people.

Speaker 2:

But, like I said, we were in the fortunate position where January is usually, I should say, pretty slow, um, but you know it's. You can sort of said before, like if you have a raving fan, they talk to their friends and you have more folks out there and then signups might be better next time. Like it's one of those things. Like we had a, they had a really great time at the club. They'll they'll talk about it for sure yeah you.

Speaker 1:

You obviously, you know, are the kind of chef who thinks on their feet. Has this always been your style, or did you learn that adaptability the hard way or just from doing it?

Speaker 2:

I think we've adapted to a lot of change, especially over the last five years, starting in 2020. It's one of those things If something doesn't work out, you pivot and figure out something else to do. You pivot and figure out something else to do, but it's figuring out a way to make it happen, I guess, is really sort of important to me. Whether it's a big dinner, a small dinner, whether it's a golf tournament for 500 people like still want to do ramen, cook fresh for them, then we should figure out a way to do it. So, you know, I've always been a bit of a problem solver or not, tried to be creative, just so that my team isn't bored. They're not just, you know, grilling burgers and flipping pancakes every day. It's, it's a little bit more than that.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, did did. Did this event reinforce anything about your leadership style or the way that you approach challenges?

Speaker 2:

I think so. Um, maybe not. Uh, maybe not right off the bat, if that makes sense, but looking back on it and to say, hey, you know what this was important, it was good for the team to see, it was a warm-up for things to come, and anytime you can teach an employee anything, I think it's a valuable lesson and that's sort of what I'm about. I want people to be better than me in the long run. So I have a large team. Some of them, you know, cook me under the table on certain things, and I think that's that's. That's important, like it's. If you surround yourself with people that are not as good as you, not, the program will never be better. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, totally Jeff. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for sharing Love what you're doing. Keep it up and we will talk to you soon.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much, good seeing you.

Speaker 1:

You too, Hope you all enjoyed that. I know I did Just remember. Next time, if you don't have a lot of signups, it's still going to be a success. You're still going to have fun. Continue with the event. You might have to pivot and change these up a little bit, but do not cancel. Your members will thank you for it. And speaking of thank you, I thank you for listening. That's this episode. Until next time. I'm your host, Eddie Corby. Catch you all on the flippity flip.

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