Ted Gillary, Executive Director, and Kevin Brennan, Executive Chef, The Detroit Athletic Club, Detroit, Mich.

Perhaps no private club is better suited to provide insights into exemplary food and beverage management practices than the 4,000-member Detroit Athletic Club (DAC), which was recently honored with the Michigan Quality Council’s 2008 Quality Leadership Award (modeled after the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award). It was the first such award evr earned by a hospitality organization in the state.

Much of The DAC’s success in F&B, which has grown in the past 15 years from $2.5 million to now over $7 million, comes from the seamless working relationship between the “front of the house” staff directed by Executive Director Ted Gillary, and the “back of the house” staff under Executive Chef Kevin Brennan. Gillary and Brennan first started working together over 20 years ago at The Recess Club in Detroit and continued their partnership for seven years at Orchard Lake (Mich.) Country Club and now for the past 15 at the DAC. As Brennan noted in a recent profile in Club & Resort Business (“The Cadillac of Club Cuisine,” February 2008), Gillary and he share a common vision that “food is the cornerstone to success in a club operation.”

In this session, the two will share how they and their staffs have learned how to work seamlessly together in the DAC’s nearly 100-year-old, six-story architectural landmark building in downtown Detroit, through an emphasis (again in Brennan’s words) on “integrity, strong leadership, team-building skills, and a focus that benchmarks our club against the best in the country.”

The session will also provide insights into how the DAC has established and implemented its distinctive Consistent Performance Process (CPP), used to 1) document the club’s F&B vision; 2) detail what must be done 100% of the time to keep customers happy; 3) create standards and procedures to execute parts one and two; 4) plan and execute rigorous and ongoing training, which includes staff certification; 5) measure results non-stop; and finally, 6) implement action plans for continuous improvement.

“CPP is a flexible process that is rooted in change,” says Brennan. “It is based on setting guarantees in each of our departments, and is the daily measure of our successes and failures. We are blessed to have a large culinary and stewarding staff, but CPP is vital to staying consistent.”

Other areas covered in this session will include: