Download complete agenda and list of speakers

Theme: Making Club Cuisine Special

Sunday, March 7

12:00 Noon – 6:00 PM Arrival/Registration (Flagler Ballroom Foyer)
Note: Registration desk will remain open through the opening reception

6:00–7:30 PM Opening reception (Living Room/Patio) featuring dishes from the first annual Chef to Chef Recipe Contest and other passed hors d’oeuvres.

(Free night for dinner; for ideas on where to go in the Palm Beach area, click here)

Monday, March 8

7:00-8:00 AM Registration (Flagler Ballroom Foyer) and Continental Breakfast (Royal Ponciana I/II)

8:00-8:15 AM Welcoming Remarks (Flagler Ballroom) – Dan Ramella, President, Club & Resort Business

8:15-9:15 AM Keynote Address: The Next Big Opportunities for Club Cuisine (Flagler Ballroom)

Speaker: Walter Scheib, White House Executive Chef from 1994 through 2005, and author of White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen. Prior to his White House experience, Scheib led the culinary team as Executive Chef at the famed Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. His career also includes experience as Executive Chef at the Boca Raton (Fla.) Resort and Club. A 1979 graduate with high honors from the Culinary Institute of America, Scheib now heads The American Chef™, which provides businesses and organizations with ideas for unique approaches to group cooking events and other special-event concepts. Television appearances made by Scheib over the years have included The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the CBS Early Show, Good Morning America, Weekend Today in New York, Nightline, and the Iron Chef competition on the Food Network station.

More on Scheib here.

9:15-10:15 AM Session 1: Leadership Lessons From a Chef (Flagler Ballroom)

Speaker: Charles M. Carroll, CEC, AAC, Executive Chef, River Oaks Country Club, Houston, Tex., will draw this presentation from his book, Leadership Lessons from a Chef: Finding Time to Be Great. Winner of over seventy national and international awards, including three Presidential Medallions from the American Culinary Federation, Chef Carroll was the manager of the 2004 United States Regional Culinary Olympic Team, which won three gold medals and ranked third internationally. Before joining River Oaks, Chef Carroll, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, held Executive Chef positions at Oak Hill Country Club (Rochester, N.Y.) and The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire.

More on Carroll here.

10:15-10:30 AM Morning Break (Flagler Ballroom Foyer)

10:30-11:00 AM Session 2: Innovations in Club Dining (Flagler Ballroom)

Speaker: William P. McMahon, Sr., AIA, OAA, Chairman, McMahon Group, Inc., St. Louis, Mo.

McMahon Group is a full-service consulting firm specializing in strategic and master planning, clubhouse and golf course improvement programs, membership strategic surveys, and a wide range of other services related to all aspects of private club challenges. The firm has worked with more than 1,200 private clubs across the United States, Canada, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. McMahon Group also co-sponsors (with Club & Resort Business) the Excellence in Club Management Awards, and frequently conducts comprehensive surveys for reports that help to identify emerging trends in club operations. In this session, William P. McMahon, Sr. will provide insights, drawn from his extensive consulting experience, into the keys to successful food and beverage operations in club settings. He will also present a preview of findings and trends from a new, survey-based report on Innovations in Club Dining that McMahon Group will be releasing in March 2010.

More on McMahon here.

11:00 AM-12:00 PM Session 3: New Spins on Old Classics (Flagler Ballroom)

Speaker: Vincent Horville, Executive Chef at The Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C.

Through live cooking demonstrations Chef Horville will show in this session how exciting new life can be brought to even the most tired of club-menu standards—even to the point of turning “old favorites” into distinctive, signature items. As featured in a “Chef to Chef” profile in the July 2009 issue of Club & Resort Business, since taking his present position in 2006, Chef Horville has used his talents and effective management style to bring significant change that has drawn favorable response from the membership and guests of one of the oldest and most valued private institutions in our nation’s capital (the Metro Club was founded in 1863). Chef Horville started cooking in his native France at an early age, and won his first of many culinary awards as one of France’s best apprentices in 1982. Since arriving in the U.S. in 1988, he has worked at other prestigious clubs, had extensive experience with business and industry foodservice accounts, won Iron Chef competitions, guest-hosted at the James Beard House, and has become an on-call chef for state dinners held at The White House and Camp David.

More on Horville here.

12:00-1:00 PM Lunch (Royal Ponciana I/II)

Prepared by the award-winning culinary team at the Four Seasons Resort.

1:00-2:00 PM Session 4: Good Food + Proper Nutrition = Healthful (and Profitable) Dining (Flagler Ballroom)

Speaker: Patrick Wilson, PC-III, WCC, CCA, CEC, ACE, FMP, Executive Chef and House Manager, The Saint Andrew’s Golf Club, Hastings On Hudson, N.Y.

Even at one of golf’s most venerated historical venues, a food and beverage operation must learn to stay in step with the times. In this session, Patrick Wilson, Executive Chef and House Manager of America’s oldest continuously existing golf club (it was founded in 1888 and is a founding member of the United States Golf Association), will discuss how he has not only kept dining in a turn-of-the-century clubhouse on the same world-class level as the golf course, but has actually positioned St. Andrew’s as an industry leader in providing club members and guests with a full variety of healthful fare that still has great taste appeal. One of only two chefs in the world who is an ACF-approved examiner and has also completed the Pro Chef exams, Wilson will focus on proven techniques for portion control, and new alternatives for spices, sauces, dressings, toppings, and icings, as he describes how he has created and positioned a “Modern Fare” menu option at St Andrew’s that now enjoys separate-but-equal status to more traditional dishes that are presented as “Club Fare.”

More on Wilson here.

2:00 PM-4:00 PM Sessions 5 & 6: “Chef to Chef Live” (Flagler Ballroom)

A “live” version of Club & Resort Business’ popular “Chef to Chef” feature, during which Jerry Schreck, Executive Chef of Merion Golf Club, Ardmore, Pa., will interview 2010 Chef to Chef Conference presenters in a format that will emphasize audience participation and questions, to generate candid and practical exchanges about the hands-on subjects facing every club and resort property.

In addition to issues raised by the audience, discussion topics to be explored during this session will include:

• Establishing a true and unique F&B identity for your property
• How to make both the front and back of the house look good – at the same time!
• Off-season planning: approaches and techniques that stick
• Finding, and tapping, new sources of creative culinary energy
• Effective communications techniques to make those old habits not only die hard, but quickly
• Catching the train on changing culinary trends, before it’s completely left the station
• The Organization Men (and Women)—Building a permanent structure for your kitchen and your people
• Change is Good—When, and how, to reconfigure equipment, change décor, revamp buffet setups, etc.
• Recipe Research: Finding what you need and using what you find
• Facilities Maintenance: The best ways to save costs while staying safe and clean
• Hiring & Training: Effective approaches for doing more than just “filling the hole”

6:00 pm- Chef to Chef Dine-Around Reception and Dinner (Royal Ponciana I/II)

Club and resort chef attendees and presenters will prepare small plates at live demonstration stations. There will also be passed hors d’oeuvres, desserts and an open bar, and special sponsor displays.

Tuesday, March 9

7:30-8:30 AM Continental Breakfast (Royal Ponciana I/II)

8:30-9:30 AM Session 7: The Chef’s Expanded Role (Flagler Ballroom)

Successful club chefs can’t work in a sealed vacuum. Just confining yourself to culinary issues won’t pass muster with the property you work for, and is also the quickest way to bring your personal chances for career advancement to a screeching halt.

In this session, a current Executive Chef who has helped to raise his club’s profile, along with his own, will join with a former chef who is now a General Manager and is leading one of the country’s most prestigious golf clubs through a major expansion program, to discuss why, and how, chefs must be involved in all of these critical areas:

• Developing, selling and keeping memberships, and increasing guest counts
• Growing revenues and profits-in all operating areas, beyond F&B
• How chefs should be involved in long-range strategic planning and implementation, and how they can work with GMs and other key members of the management team (golf pros, membership directors), and with owners, Boards and committees, to effectively pursue a property’s goals.
• The newly emerging “Chef & B” position that includes general management duties
• How club F&B operations should be positioned and benchmarked against the competition (including area restaurants, as well as other clubs)
• Making club dining a destination, year-round
• Giving the chef and culinary staff more celebrity
• Maximizing the value of social/dining memberships
• Dealing with “the minimum” issue

Presenters will include Kevin Cottle, Executive Chef at The Country Club of Farmington, in Farmington, Conn. and Matt Murphy, Clubhouse Manager of Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn., with the last third of the session reserved for questions and audience discussion.

More on Cottle here.

More on Murphy here.

9:30-10:30 AM Session 8: Kitchen Equipment/Design (Flagler Ballroom)

To show how to make the best use of equipment and space to improve operating efficiencies, Brad Cornwall, Executive Chef at Blackrock Country Club in Hingham, Mass., will join with Kevin Cromwell, formerly Executive Chef of Charles River Country Club, Newton, Mass., to provide insights from their experiences with both the creation of new kitchens and the retrofitting or reorganization of existing ones.

Specific topics that will be covered in the session will include:

• Designing, or renovating, kitchens to fit the particular needs of a club or resort property
• Specifying the proper equipment and making sure it will be in the right place, to limit wasted steps and maximize food quality, service levels, operating costs and staff morale
• Building flexibility into design, especially if a kitchen must be multi-purpose (to handle both a la carte and catering needs)
• Avoiding clutter
• Designing a kitchen that’s up to code
• Accommodating food storage needs (hot, cold and room temperature), as well as delivery and storage of other materials and supplies
• Cleanup considerations (dishwashers, floor cleaning, etc.)
• Important safety and lighting considerations
• Getting the most out of cooking equipment, work tables, and holding stations for prep and plating, no matter how old or multi-purpose it may be

More on Cornwall here.
More on Cromwell here.

10:30-10:45 AM Morning Break (Flagler Ballroom Foyer)

10:45-11:45 AM Session 9: Buy vs. Make (Flagler Ballroom)

This session will explore techniques for weighing food costs/labor options. It will cover how to properly test the quality of “ready-made” ingredients, how to determine when it’s right to bring in a pastry chef, and how to make the best use of one once you do.

Robert Wysong, Executive Chef at The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island (S.C.) Golf Resort, will draw on his experience as 20-year culinarian with private clubs (The Pensacola (Fla.) CC), resort (The Grove Park Inn and Spa in Asheville, N.C.), independent restaurants and a luxury hotelier (The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples, Fla.) to help sort through the options that must be weighed and decisions that must be made to make the right choices about food costs and labor options, without sacrificing quality or the value of fresh-made product. Specific discussion topics will include:

• How to properly test the quality of “ready-made” ingredients
• When it’s right to bring in a pastry chef – and how to make the best use of one when you do
• The special potential of quickbreads and other fresh-baked specialties

More on Wysong here.

11:45 AM-12:45 PM Session 10: Wine/Spirits Pairings (Flagler Ballroom)

This session will explore how to fully tap the potential of beverage sales, both as stand-alone purchases and as an integral part of all dining occasions. The session will explore how to develop real wine expertise on your staff, how to make the most of by-the-glass sales, and how to boost revenues through private wine-room dinners and from a fully stocked wine cellar.

Clive Smith, Clubhouse Manager of Merion Golf Club, Ardmore, Pa., will co-present with Randa Warren, a Master Sommelier who frequently conducts private seminars and classes for country clubs and resorts, to discuss topics including:

• How to fully tap the potential of beverage sales, both as stand-alone purchases and as an integral part of all dining occasions
• Developing real wine expertise on your staff
• Maximizing by-the-glass sales
• Boosting revenues through private wine-room dinners and from a fully stocked wine cellar
• The value of an accredited sommelier

More on Smith here.

More on Warren here.

12:45-2:00 PM Lunch

Prepared by the award-winning culinary team at the Four Seasons Resort.

2:00-3:00 PM Session 11: Revving up Takeout/Fast Casual Revenues (Flagler Ballroom)

Christopher Ropp, Executive Chef at Kenwood Country Club, Cincinnati, Ohio, will provide insights on this fast-growing extension of club and resort food-and-beverage programs. Specific topics to be explored will include:

• Turning holidays into take-home occasions (with more than just turkeys)–and then getting to go home yourself
• Overcoming the potential stumbling blocks (legal, tax and philosophical) and getting past “we can’t do that”
• Making the best use of available technology to promote and track carry-out sales

More on Ropp here.

3:00-4:00 PM Session 12: Making Catering Events Special (Flagler Ballroom)

Gerald Schmidt, Executive Chef and Director of Culinary for Linger Longer Communities (which encompasses Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga. and its 11 food-and-beverage outlets at various clubhouse venues on the property), will draw from his experiences in building up a $6 million operation through a variety of special events to help suggest new ways to inject excitement and innovation—and greater profitability—into all aspects of the all-important catering side of the business. Specific areas to be covered will include:

• Finding new ways to make even the most routine catered events work better
• Creating unique venues by taking full advantage of all that your property has to offer.
• Overcoming common logistical problems with setups, deliveries, etc.

More on Schmidt here.

4:00-4:15 PM Closing Remarks, Presentation of Certificates