Skokie Country Club CATERING DIRECTOR
JOB DESCRIPTION & POSTING
Club Information: Located in Glencoe, IL, part of Chicago’s North Shore communities, Skokie was founded in 1897. The Club features an 18-hole Donald Ross golf course which hosted the 1922 US Open and will host the 2025 Western Amateur. The Club has 6 recently renovated hydro outdoor tennis courts, 6 paddle tennis courts and a large paddle house. Skokie spent $6 million on renovations to the pool and poolside café in 2014. Annual food and beverage revenue in 2022 exceeded $4.4 million. The Club opened a $4.2 million restaurant and bar in September 2022 offering our over 750 Members and families a new casual place to dine. Upcoming projects planned to be completed by 2025 include: paddle hut renovation, the addition of pickle ball, expanded golf instruction facility, and enhanced golf practice range. Club membership is fully subscribed with over a four year wait list for golf.
Summary of Position:
Responsible for the planning, execution and billing of all private and Club events. Organizes the Club calendar working closely with the Entertainment Committee, Golf and Racquets professionals. Provides timely and accurate event information to all departments and recognizes such as the key to everyone’s success. Secures entertainment and décor within event budgets. Is supported by an experienced Food and Beverage Management team and oversees the seasonal Catering Management Intern(s) and Banquet Service Staff. This position reports directly to the Assistant General Manager, however, works very closely with the General Manager, Executive and Sous Chefs, Food and Beverage Director and Housekeeping Manager.
Essential Job Tasks and Responsibilities:
• Work with Members in coordinating and planning their catered functions.
• Provides tours, offers suggestions, plans menus and undertakes special event requests for the occasion being planned.
• Works annually with the Executive Chef to revise catering menus, including pricing and menu offerings ensuring items are current and reflect general Member interests.
• Coordinates and secures entertainment, decorations, audio-visual, floral and any other requirements integral to events being planned.
• Reviews event contracts periodically updating pricing, policy and procedures as necessary.
• Creates and distributes accurate and timely information via Banquet Event Orders (BEO) and floor plans to all Club departments.
• Inspects finished arrangements; checking BEOs against actual room setup.
• Collaborates with Food and Beverage director to ensure proper personnel scheduling for catered events.
• Executes events as assigned.
• Receives both Member compliments, sharing them with staff, and handles Member complaints with positive resolution.
• Works closely with the Entertainment Committee on yearly social events.
• Works closely with the Ladies Golf Chairwomen on seasonal 18 hole and 9 hole events.
• Ensures all events are billed promptly and accurately.
• Critiques functions to determine future needs and implements necessary changes for increased quality.
• Meets with Golf and Racquets professionals to plan food and beverage aspects of Club events organized by the staff members.
• Updates weekly function information for all affected staff.
• Maintains Club’s master calendar.
• Organizes banquet staff effectively and efficiently by advance preparation of service packets including clearly identified tasks, service sections, information and expectation the team may need. • Assures proper FOH and BOH service areas are clean before releasing staff. • Participates and follows up in on-going facility inspections throughout the Club to assure that cleanliness, maintenance, safety and other standards are maintained; communicates deficiencies and concerns when they become known. • Assists in responsibility of the security of the clubhouse facilities relative to systems, opening and closing assignments, including acting as the manager on duty when necessary. • Assists in the preparation of the annual budget for the catering department; monitors actual performance to budget and takes corrective action as necessary to help assure that budget goals are met. • Assists the Assistant General Manager with capital budget planning for banquet needs. • Attends management and staff meetings as scheduled. • Assists in enforcing Board approved house rules and operational procedures set by the General Manager. • Undertakes special projects as assigned by Assistant General Manager.
Traits, Skills and Competencies
• Proven communicator: Demonstrates both verbal and written skill. Ability to deliver timely and accurate information to all departments. • Organization: Ability to prioritize and demonstrate time management skills, using down-time effectively, producing the next week’s event packet by Wednesday of each week. • Attention to detail: Communicate accurate information to both Members and staff, ensuring all event information is accurately and completely described on the BEO. • Diplomacy: Ability to interact, with appropriate personal presence, before diverse constituencies of Members, staff and vendors who are part of the success of Skokie Country Club. • Professionalism: Self-motivated with the ability to work within and interface with the management team in an effective manner for problem solving, handling conflict, delegation, communication, instilling teamwork, and being respectful. Proven integrity and honesty. • Service orientated: Understand and practice Member service philosophy and be fully engaged in and fulfilled by providing Members with 24-hour response times to questions.
• Desires Growth: Committed to professional growth and development of oneself, keeping up on trends and new ideas in the industry. Can generate thoughts and ideas that result in improved member satisfaction and efficiencies. • Leader: Leads by example taking time to coach temporary banquet staff and new team members. • Pro-active: Anticipates needs of staff and members and can quickly react to it. • Solid food and beverage knowledge, including service technique and menu engineering. • Must have computer skills with Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel. • Strong work ethic “in season” and recognizes need to effectively plan, evaluate, and retool “off season”; clubhouse is closed mid-February through March, open 5 days per week April and October through December and 6 days per week May through September.
Education and Experience:
• 2-4 years in a previous catering or banquet management role. • Degree in hospitality management and/or college degree desired but not necessary. • Progressive experience in a Club, hotel, resort, or restaurant is required. • Experience with the catering platform Infor (Reserve) is highly desirable. • Private Club experience is a plus.
Compensation:
• Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications.
• Vacation, sick time, health insurance, short-term disability, 401(k), cell phone reimbursement and clothing allowance.