To celebrate the upcoming holiday weekend, the club will host a socially distant event that includes a full menu of fast-casual favorites.
For North Shore Country Club (Glenview, Ill.), the fourth of July is one of the club’s biggest celebrations. It’s typically held on the 3rd and includes a large firework display, three different buffets, kids activities including inflatables, a baloon artist, airbrush tatoos, a DJ and more.
Last summer, the club charged $55/adult and $25/kids to attend the events. 900 members were there and the club brought in $73,400 in revenue.
This year, because of COVID-19 and social distancing requirements, North Shore CC is going in a different direction for its July 4th celebration. The plan is to host a drive-in movie night in its parking lot.
The club plans to show Captain American and offer family and car friendly foods.
“This way we can in courage the members to practice social distancing, but continue to serve them and celebrate together,” says Matthias Wieder, Executive Chef of North Shore Country Club (Glenview, Ill.).
A few weeks ago, North Shore hosted its first drive-in movie and roughly 200 members attended.
“We had an LED display so you could see the screen even in daylight,” explains Wieder. “We broadcasted the audio over a radio channel and with speakers. The menu was more “fast-food” style and included double-cheese burgers, grilled chicken sandwiches with guacamole, caesar salads with grilled chicken, beef nachos, large pretzels, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and a choice of sides including potato chips or fruit salad.
At the end of the movie, North Shore CC’s team delivered ice cream to each car.
The club charged $25/car, a price they plan to continue for the celebration this coming weekend.
“We made about $2,000 in food and $1,800 in beverage that night,” says Wieder. “We predict to make about $2,000 more in revenue at the next event.”
In order to keep a safe distance between cars, the club will cap it at 50 cars.
“There were plenty of challenges,” says Wieder. “The parking lot is far away from the kitchen, but we needed to make food that was easy to eat in a car. It also had to be family friendly and served in a 30-40 minute time window. There were also special requests, which made it more difficult to keep speed of service up.”
To overcome these challenges, the club asked members to pre-order their meals so that the club could prepare as much in advance as possible. They also plan to set up a remote kitchen with an outdoor grill, tables, a hand-washing station and a hot box.
“When members arrive, we’ll give them a sheet of paper with number on it so we can identify them easily,” says Wieder. “Someone will show them where to park—it will be first come first serve—and then a server will be sent to the car to take drink orders and fire the order.”
North Shore CC also added a dedicated phone number so that members could text the club if they need a refill or a server to come to the car.
The event will start at 6:30pm and wrap at 10pm.
“This event isn’t about making money,” says Wieder. “It’s about getting members out to enjoy