With nearly 3,400 members and $21 million in annual food-and-beverage revenue, The Landings Golf & Athletic Club in Savannah, Ga., boasts one of the largest culinary brigades in the country, spanning ten standing culinary concepts, from fast-casual dining to 10-course tasting menus, and hundreds of events a year, led by Executive Chef Sam Brod, CEC.

Click here to read about Brod’s Club + Resort Chef of the Year win at the 2023 Chef to Chef Conference in Miami. And click here for Brod’s recipe for duck terrine and butternut squash silken on the Club + Resort Chef recipe site.

Among its efforts to find and retain talent, The Landings raised wages for all culinary and stewarding staff, and it offers multiple training programs for staff, including a 3,000-hour American Culinary Federation (ACF) apprenticeship. It’s also hired a central food-and-beverage recruiting manager.

“We have moved to the philosophy that we ‘hire great people who hire great people,'” says Brod.

In December, the club initiated an incentive program to show appreciation for team members who pick up extra shifts when needed.

Team members earn points for each shift they pick up, which can be redeemed for rewards at three levels, including gift cards, trolley tours, Landings merch, VIP stadium tickets and more.

The club also offers an ACF-approved 18-week internship program for culinary interns/externs, as well as an 18-week internship program for soldiers stationed at Fort Stewart Hunter Army Airfield as part of their active-duty training.

The program is “tailored specifically for the soldiers,” says Brod. “Additionally, the club assists on base at Ft. Stewart’s culinary excellence training facility.”

The club’s most recent venture is its culinary and pastry apprenticeship, which is 3,000 cumulative hours and takes about three to complete.

“Apprentices are rotated through almost all aspects of the kitchen over the course of the 3,000-hour program,” says Brod. “The club is in the final stages of partnering with a post-secondary school, which will administer the needed coursework for apprentices to graduate with an AOS degree in culinary arts as well as an accredited ACEF apprenticeship certificate.”