Continuing Operations: Building Creativity Through Construction

How has this idea enhanced your club's operation, etc.?

Houston Country Club has worked to keep its operations online and growing throughout the 4-year construction project. Throughout construction, we moved and displaced many departments and operations but continued to keep services and amenities open to the membership. Members have greatly appreciated the efforts to keep operations going so they can continue to use their club through this lengthy renovation. They have been able to dine at restaurants and have their events/weddings/galas throughout the entire project. Keeping operations online also allowed us to keep all staff on board. As the construction project nears completion, the members will have a state-of-the-art facility and our team is able to think outside the box.

How was this idea implemented, and what have been the club members' reactions?

We worked closely with our General Contractors and Project Managers to find creative ways to navigate the challenges in each phase of construction. One example was executing banquet ‘busy season’ without a banquet kitchen and service stations. To do this, we created “tent city” in the parking which held shipping containers outfitted to be coolers, freezers, and dry good storage spaces. Through frequent planning sessions with front of house and back of house, new methods and service systems were created to execute events with the new temporary set up. The service & culinary teams worked together to find unused rooms, hallways and vestibules for service stations and pop-up kitchens/plate-up areas for each banquet.