Food and Beverage at Golf Courses 
It’s no secret that golf courses struggle with food and beverage in their operations. We’ve written blogs before, like ‘grow your food and beverage revenues‘ and ‘food and beverage trends‘ but it is still a challenge. One of the biggest obstacles comes with pricing your daily menu and your special events. Many regular golfers and members alike seem to have this notion that they should not pay fair market value for food and beverages when at the golf course.
Illustration
The image to the right is one we took off of Facebook around Thanksgiving. The menu looks great (we’d eat there), but there is one thing standing out… THE PRICE! You cannot serve that menu and those menu items on a buffet for that price. You will lose money, that is a fact! After accounting for front of house labour, back of house labour and food costs this event will cost you money. Never mind the cost of simply turning on the lights, or the planning, prep, reservation taking etc before the event happens.
Setting Prices
When setting your food and beverage prices you need to come up with at minimum a system for your cost percentages. Do you know the following?
- % of overhead (heat, lighting etc)
- % of front of house labour (servers & bussers)
- % of back of house labour (cooks & dishwashers) – plus prep time
- % of food costs
- % of profit from each buffet you wish to make
Until you have established the above you cannot realistically price your buffet meals, nor judge if you are succeeding financially. Anyway you cut it, you cannot charge $14.95 for the menu above and expect to make money!
Need help with your golf courses food and beverage operation, feel free to connect with us for a no charge phone chat here.
We, Jeff and Tara Ciecko of CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other an Industry Blog where we comment on general business and internet marketing best practices, sales strategies and give golf industry related opinions. We have owned CK Golf for 10 years and provide business services to the golf and other industries. As of August 2016 our life and our business is ‘location independent’. Our 19th Hole Blog is about the places we visit and the things we do. If you have any questions or comments, or happen to be in the same location as us please reach out and contact us anytime.
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