This is Part 3 of multi-part series by Drew Tait, Executive Chef of The Forest Country Club. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Step Five: Create the Dining Identity
Once the feedback has been organized and ranked, the F&B leadership team and General Manager can begin identifying the descriptive words that best represent what the membership wants dining at the club to be.
Potential words might include exclusive, personalized, memorable, approachable, impeccably executed, unique, or competitively priced. The final words will be specific to each club. The important thing is that they should not be chosen simply because leadership likes them. They should be rooted in member feedback.
The dining identity should represent the answer to a fundamental question: “What do our members want dining at our club to be? ”
Once the leadership team has established a proposed identity, it should be presented to the committee Food and Beverage reports to.
From here, our F&B leadership team, along with our general manager, will use these ranked categories to develop the descriptive words that best capture our members’ answers.
Step Six: Secure Committee Buy-In
This is a crucial step. The committee must have the opportunity to review, discuss, provide feedback on, and ultimately support the Dining Identity.
Why is this so important? Because most operational ideas and proposed changes eventually come through these committees. Every chef has experienced some version of this:
A new committee member proposes an idea that the team has already tried. Or perhaps the idea does not fit the club’s direction. You explain that it was tried previously, but eventually say: “We tried that before, but we can try it again.” You do not want to appear resistant to change. The idea moves forward.
And suddenly, the team is spending time and resources pursuing initiatives that may not support what the membership has said it wants.
A clearly established dining identity can help keep the team focused on the true goals the membership has expressed. When the committee understands and supports the identity, it becomes a shared strategic framework. Instead of every new idea being evaluated in isolation, it can be evaluated against a larger question: Does this support the dining identity our members helped create?
Playing the Long Game
A clearly established dining identity can guide decisions across the entire club. It will help influence menu development, restaurant concepts, special event themes, club-wide events, pricing strategies, service standards, renovation decisions, capital planning, and member engagement programs. Most importantly, though, it creates alignment. It helps management, the committees, the board of directors, and the entire team move in the same direction, syncing on the same goals.
Developing a dining identity is not a quick project. It requires research, member engagement, honest feedback, thoughtful analysis, alignment, and support. But the effort can pay dividends far into the future.
The ability to truly understand what your membership wants dining at the club to be—and then articulate that vision in a few clear, meaningful words—provides a powerful strategic advantage. It allows you to move beyond simply reacting to changing demographics, declining participation, or shifting dining habits. Instead, you can anticipate change, genuinely understand your members more profoundly, and make more calculated decisions about the future of your dining program.
The goal is not to create a dining program that appeals to only one generation, one type of member, or the latest trends. The goal is to create a dining identity that is unique to your club—one that reflects your club’s character. That honors the traditions that make your club special. Which evolves with the changing needs of your membership and provides a clear framework for each decision you make about the future of dining at the club.
When you truly grasp your members’ desires for dining, you are no longer purely managing a food and beverage operation. You are working to help build the future of your club.
And when that future is shaped by the voice of the membership, supported by leadership, and embraced by the entire team, dining becomes more than a service. It becomes part of the identity of the club itself.
