368: Innovative Strategies for Revitalizing A Historic City Club w/ Jay Hingsbergen, University Club of Cincinnati

Transcript

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It's easy to come up with a plan.

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It's easy to come up with funding.

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It's easy to pour money into a space.

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What takes a little bit more effort and coordination is coming up with the programming to execute in that space, because neither can exist without the other.

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Hey everybody.

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Welcome back to the Private Club Radio Show podcast, the industry source for news, trends, updates and conversations all in the world of private golf and country clubs, whether you are brand new to the industry or a consummate professional.

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Welcome and welcome back.

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We are so glad you're here.

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I'm your host, denny Corby.

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This episode, which probably, when this comes out, will be along some other episodes I've been digging more into city clubs.

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I love city clubs.

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They think they're so cool, they're so much fun and, based off the conversations I've been having, they are having a comeback and a resurgence.

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If you will, and I am very excited about it, I'm going to be bringing on Jay Hingsbergen.

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He's the general manager of the University Club of Cincinnati, super stoked to bring him on doing a lot of cool things over there and excited for him to share about that.

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Before we go on, if you're enjoying the content like share, subscribe Cost nothing.

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And before we get to the episode, a quick little note from some of our show partners.

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So really cool stuff.

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We have member vetting, our friend Paul Dank.

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Kenneth, if you are not doing some good fact-based member vetting for you and your club, I think you're really doing your club a disservice.

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If you'd like to learn more about the member vetting way the Kenneth's way of fact-based member vetting, making sure that the people who you are letting into your club are the best people head on over to membervettingcom and, from there, set up a call with Paul Dank.

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Lastly, we have our friends Concert Golf Partners, boutique Owner Operators, private Golf and Country Clubs nationwide.

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If you or your club is looking for some recapitalization, head on over to ConcertGolfPartnerscom.

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Set up a confidential phone call with Peter Nanula.

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See if you guys are a good fit and, last but not least, it's actually me.

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I'm one of the show partners, denny Corby.

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If you or your club is looking for one of the most fun member event nights, you can have the Denny Corby experience.

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There's magic, mindery and comedy, there's excitement, there's mystery.

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It is an absolute blast from start to finish, from the moment people show up to the time they leave.

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We have a good time.

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You want to learn more, dennycorbycom.

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But now let's welcome to the show, to Private Club Radio, one of the best names in club management, jay Hingsbergen.

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Jay, how's it going?

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Great?

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Thank you for having me, denny.

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What's the background of your name?

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Oh, that's a good question.

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I think my dad once said Hingsbergen, Heinz Bergen, meaning city-dwelling mountain folk.

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Maybe Great-granddad Conrad Hingsbergen immigrated here from Amsterdam as a Cooper, so naturally I'm working with spirits daily.

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No, it's a wonderful name.

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Love the name I liked when we chatted, because you've been only at a few clubs, right, this is your second club.

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You've gotten to clubs early and stuck with them and have long tenure.

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So you were at the cincinnati country club for was it over 10 years, 12 years?

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You were 15 years at one club, which is a long time.

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You started uh what?

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as as busser server yeah, I started as a bus boy.

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First job out of high school, um, and at that point in my life it was just cash.

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I wanted a PlayStation.

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I maybe wanted a car.

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I wasn't very long-term about it at 15.

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But I really enjoyed it.

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I kept with it through college and pretty soon I realized I really liked being on my feet.

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I really liked interacting with people and I really liked the opportunity to mentor and train others liked interacting with people and I really liked the opportunity to mentor and train others.

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So the private club industry was really a perfect fit for me, as I did kind of grow up in it.

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So I was at Cincinnati Country Club for about 15 years, starting as a busboy and leaving as director of food and beverage operations and purchasing and inventory manager.

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I went to another local country club, los Sanibel Country Club, where I helped guide them through a sizable capital project to expand their outdoor dining, ready them for an irrigation project and help increase their optimization of food and beverage.

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And not before long I was asked to come down to the university club to interview to be their general manager, on the tail of a GM who had been here for about 15 years and was ready to retire and move in a different direction with his life.

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So it's been kind of a similar set of circumstances here and it's kind of amazing to witness firsthand at three different clubs the same types of transformations, really just bringing food and beverage trends up to speed, renovating spaces to become more relevant and to attract a younger membership, focusing on some of the trends that we see um around the country and and here in Cincinnati, which has become quite the hotspot for food and beverage.

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What's it like taking over the reins of somebody who's been there for 15 years?

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That's gotta be tough, especially like at a city club as well.

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I feel like it's a little nichier and they're a little bit more tight knit sometimes.

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So what's that like filling those shoes?

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Yeah, it's, it's a bit different.

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It's you know, you, you can't replace the person that has been there.

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I mean, I feel like club management is just such a unique skillset.

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Everybody has different paths to that general manager role and we all bring different strengths to that role, whether you're a golf pro or the accountant or from food and beverage.

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So it's different.

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Stepping into a team that's been well established, it's also a good thing.

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To step into a team that's well established, it means the club's been doing right for so long.

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A good thing to step into a team that's well-established, it means the club's been doing right for so long.

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But you know, being of a different generation, I see things differently.

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You know I see technological needs, I see the trends in food and beverage a little bit different, as they are aimed at the mid-30, mid-40-somethings.

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And you really just have to do what you have to do with any other new position get to know your people, get to know them really well and kind of comb through everyone's attributes, everybody's strengths and make sure you have that established team built.

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We've had some turnover of longer term positions in the last year and a half, so that's one drawback, I'd say.

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But you know about half of those folks that were over 15 years have stayed with us and have always kept a developing mindset that this is an industry of constant changes and constant changing demands and we've got to stay on our toes and we have to always be ready to meet members' expectations same and changing.

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What weren't you ready for coming into a city club Like, were there any?

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Like you're like whoa did not expect this, or was it fairly?

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Were you pretty much ready and everything was kind of what you thought.

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Yeah, you know, I think after going from a larger club like Cincinnati Country Club, which has a large social membership or members that use their club socially the previous club I was at, la Santa Vel, is a bit smaller, not quite as well capitalized a lot of growth in that position, just learning how to prioritize when it comes to infrastructure versus the things that we think are really cool or might increase throughput for the club.

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So it's been a little bit more of the same.

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In that regard, I'd say the biggest difference is you can't justify charging quite as high of dues when you don't have a golf course and a pool to maintain or tennis courts to maintain, which means that we just have to run more efficiently and we just have to be a little bit more capital conscious.

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Now it could be a dumb question, but I just got to ask anyway.

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Do people have to be a graduate of the University of Cincinnati to be a member?

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A graduate of the university of Cincinnati?

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to be a member, or can anybody be a member?

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No, um, you.

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The only requirement is that you have two years of college education.

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Um, and I think in recent years they've actually edited that to say, or consummate knowledge in your profession.

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You know colleges and necessarily the only requirement anymore.

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But the club was founded as a club in 1879, who required two years of college as an admission prerequisite.

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Gotcha, gotcha.

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And when I'm calling candidates for a server role, it's always a second take.

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What job are you calling me for at the university?

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No, no, this is a club, think country club minus the golf.

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Well then what's left.

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So always a different approach?

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Yeah right, always a different approach, but no.

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University clubs sprung up in the late 1800s when universities were centralized in the East Coast and people who were college educated wanted to have a space to intermingle with other college educated folks, and they've developed today where you know it is more of a social amenity, like I'd say.

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The country clubs are as well, and especially since COVID, we have to do a better job at doing what people cannot complete at their homes by themselves.

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That's something I always preach to my team.

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Food's been like that for a while.

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Right, you can't just grill a burger like you'd grill out back.

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But now, even more so with cocktails, with your wine selections, we have to be able to get our hands on products that are exclusive, and we have to leverage our relationships to get those things here forethought into making syrups and tinctures and other ingredients.

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That isn't just your bourbon on the rocks or your gin and tonic like anybody can make at home.

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That has become less and less popular, as people are so much more value conscious and people are so much more socially conscious, given the three months of lockdown we all endured, Three months, I think a little bit longer than that, no well, I don't know, I guess in ohio it was a very strict kind of three months and after that it was kind of like, okay, we can wave from six feet apart, but um no, but regardless that

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period just this brings to why I want to chat today, which was you were starting to take my job a little bit there, bud, watch, watch what you're talking about starting to bring up the, which was you were starting to take my job a little bit there, but watch, watch, watch what you're talking about Starting to bring up the.

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No, but you, you've done some cool stuff.

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Uh, when you and I first chatted about, you know, bringing in cause, you realized the club needed, you know, good wines, good spirits, all that.

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But you know sometimes to have a, you know, onsite or a Somalia or a high, you know very high, good, high quality mixologist.

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But you, you found a workaround you just outsource them.

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You just brought them from the local community and just brought them in, which is genius, such a great idea.

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And you're supporting the local community, you're helping local people, it's just.

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You're getting the local flavors as well.

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I think that's just.

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Yeah, you could talk more to it.

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Yeah, well, you know, this fractional economy is an ever-growing thing, right, there are a lot of professionals that see the value in working with multiple organizations doing the same craft but still being diversified, where they don't just have one client.

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And I think for the creatives, a lot of them don't like necessarily coming in and standing behind the same bar or standing in the same dining room every night.

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So you know, the way I kind of came about.

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Outsourcing a sommelier and a mixologist was really from a set of needs.

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You know, like you mentioned, our club needed increased wine selections.

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We needed better cocktail selections, especially given that we had this million dollar plus renovation that was getting ready to open about six months after I was brought to the university club here, like I mentioned prior, the capital constraints that smaller clubs, especially city clubs, without those golf course driven dues, have to operate under.

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So I was actually on Instagram one day and I saw a really cool picture of a really cool cocktail.

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So many of us get inspiration from Instagram or Pinterest and you know, because what everybody wants in food and beverage is to see people pulling their phones out, taking a picture and posting.

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Look at where I'm at, you know.

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So that that's the atmosphere that we're trying to bring to this great new space.

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Um, let's get the word out there a little bit.

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So I'm on Instagram, I see this incredible cocktail and, um, this guy that's dressed to the nines and has multicolored hair and just looks like a pretty cool guy.

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He happens to be in Cincinnati and we happen to have a couple of mutual friends, since I know some people that do work in the restaurant industry locally.

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So I just sent him a DM and I said hey, I love what you're putting out as far as cocktails go.

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I work at a private club.

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Can we work together?

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Can we explore a possible partnership?

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We could use some help with a cocktail operation, because I love playing around with things like that.

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But my hands were tied and managing this project and really still onboarding to this new role.

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So he came down to the club.

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We chatted for a bit.

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I told him what I wanted club that incorporated fresh, fresh, creative ingredients and had names tailored to our 140 year history of being a club.

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And, um, you know he?

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He basically said I can do it.

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And, uh, we chatted a little bit more.

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I just told him you know, gotta have bourbon.

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We're in the Midwest Love to play on some kind of classic cocktails.

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You know, the classic cocktails do go well here, but they've got to be better and we've got to have a couple of non-alcoholic cocktails.

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That's really important nowadays.

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And so we came up to kind of a per diem agreement that he would produce these five cocktails two NA cocktails for us, train our bar staff on how to make them, help us batch in a way that kept ingredients fresh but also made there still be a bit of a show behind the bar, um, but increased efficiency as well.

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And uh, he came back about two weeks later.

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We tasted through what he had created.

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We tweaked a couple of things and he had all these names that just rung University Club.

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And so one of the cocktails he made was called the Governor's Cup, which just so simple, have just come up with that.

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But no way I was making a coffee syrup with, uh, chocolate bitters and you know um, blueberry agave, nectar or whatnot.

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So these are three or four ingredients.

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Takes a little bit of time behind the stove, um, but then you batch them.

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We went through the process together.

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He created clear build sheets for both our ingredients and our batch recipes, and then he created build sheets for behind the bar operations.

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So two and a half ounces of this batch, two dashes of bitters, squeeze a fresh lime shake, strain over a large ice cube and, at the end of the day, your bartender whether it's their 10th year or 10th day can create this drink that's replicable and impressive.

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I'm sure they feel proud making it too, and it's just like something different.

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It's fun, it stretches them as well, it's I don't know.

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There's aromatics, there's different things that make it look good too.

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And, uh, give us reasons and ways to interact with a customer and the member well, exactly, it gets them excited.

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you know it's there's.

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There's nothing exciting about saying, all right, here's how you make a manhattan or here's how we make our Manhattan.

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Um, so any of our bar staff just loved wanting to work in this new space upstairs and, uh, yeah, it makes them, it makes them look like a star, it makes them feel like a star.

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I actually I actually had a bartender who, um, learned a lot from this gentleman over two cocktail recipe cycles, as we uh, change them about every three months, or change at least 40% of them every three months, and our staff bartender actually created our new cocktail list that we're currently running, because he was inspired to do so.

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So in that way it's paid dividends.

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But the biggest thing for me, I couldn't afford to pay a mixologist full time what he's worth to be here, but you know.

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So 500 to a thousand dollars, yeah, I was just gonna say so about how much did it cost you for that whole thing?

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So the first, the first menu cost about $1,200, um for three months.

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The cocktails that we ran for three months so negligible um on drinks that we could charge an extra $2 per glass for, and there's about 40 cents of product in the cup, um, but again, what's what's immeasurable is teaching someone, incentivizing someone to say, hey, I'm going to do this for you, because not only am I proud about these cocktails somebody else made, but I'm going to learn the craft, I'm going to spend the time doing it and I want to be able to say that these are my recipes.

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So it kind of helped us, helped us home grow a mixologist too.

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That's cool, that's cool.

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And then you did the same with a sommelier.

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Then too.

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Right, right.

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So I'm passionate about my wine but I've never gotten the sommelier certificate.

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I really don't have the time to drink as much wine as it takes to know so much about it.

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I've been blessed to have experts in my periphery and work with so many different vendors, intermediaries, importers, but as far as sitting down and curating different relevant selections, that's an investment of time that I just couldn't fit in my schedule.

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So this gentleman that is now our sommelier, who's a contracted individual, he's actually a friend of a current member.

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So with our newest renovation we installed a bank of 36 wine lockers which actually sold out about two weeks before the space opened.

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The wine program here is really growing.

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So that was a strong signal to me that not only do we have the wine enthusiast here, but we need to run with this.

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I mean there's programming we can do there.

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We need to do multiple wine dinners a year.

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We need to do multiple wine tastings.

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We need to do monthly features, multiple wine tastings, we need to do monthly features.

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So a member that joined our wine society, which is the group that is renting our lockers now, he reached out to me and said hey, I have a friend.

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He has a local company he largely curates and dropship selections.

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I like to buy the wine that he suggests.

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He's a sommelier.

00:21:27.094 --> 00:21:28.567
Could we have lunch sometime?

00:21:28.567 --> 00:21:35.730
So I said, yeah, of course, that sounds like a really great opportunity to possibly partner with this gentleman.

00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:46.934
So we had lunch one day and after a couple of different meetings we kind of landed on let's start out by doing a monthly wine newsletter.

00:21:46.934 --> 00:21:52.211
We'll introduce features for the month, three to five selections.

00:21:52.211 --> 00:22:07.675
So he works with a couple of nicer items that I've maybe come across from my vendors.

00:22:07.675 --> 00:22:13.065
He also handpicks a month talk about the next month's write-up.

00:22:13.065 --> 00:22:29.278
Put our finishing touches on our plans for service for our current month features and and you know this is about $400 a month and we have a wine newsletter.

00:22:29.778 --> 00:22:50.285
We have a retail solution for our members because we're not a retail location and we have someone who is willing to come in and help us plan and execute quarterly wine dinners and monthly tastings and be a resource in name as the university clubs.

00:22:50.285 --> 00:22:59.660
So very similar, just less bottle opening and mixing, more selecting and informing.

00:22:59.660 --> 00:23:01.792
And that's largely what the wine crowd wants.

00:23:01.792 --> 00:23:05.015
They want someone to say this is what you like to drink.

00:23:05.015 --> 00:23:07.212
Well, try this, and here's why.

00:23:07.212 --> 00:23:09.987
And the here's.

00:23:09.987 --> 00:23:14.175
Why is such an important selling factor in wine?

00:23:14.175 --> 00:23:15.238
It's the story.

00:23:16.325 --> 00:23:19.095
And I'm sure that's paid for itself in dividends and the members are thrilled.

00:23:20.726 --> 00:23:21.446
But without a doubt.

00:23:21.446 --> 00:23:29.200
I mean again, you're talking about going from our $9 house wine to $12 or $13 glass feature.

00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:35.635
Someone wants a glass of Chardonnay and you say, well, would you like to try this?

00:23:35.635 --> 00:23:38.530
Walter Scott from Oregon, it's our monthly feature.

00:23:38.530 --> 00:23:40.913
We're only going to have it until the end of July.

00:23:40.913 --> 00:23:45.594
They're likely to say, yeah, let's give it a go.

00:23:45.594 --> 00:23:54.030
And then they realize my God, a couple more dollars I can have a much better glass than when I just walk up to the bar and ask for Chardonnay.

00:23:54.030 --> 00:23:57.413
Um, so that that's, that's grown.

00:23:58.433 --> 00:24:01.316
That's only been going on for about three months now.

00:24:01.316 --> 00:24:04.698
But it's picking up steam and we have a lot of people at the club talking about it.

00:24:04.698 --> 00:24:06.759
But it's picking up steam and we have a lot of people at the club talking about it.

00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:11.261
It's easy to come up with a plan, it's easy to come up with funding, it's easy to pour money into a space.

00:24:11.261 --> 00:24:28.829
What takes a little bit more effort and coordination is coming up with the programming to execute in that space, because neither can exist without the other.

00:24:28.829 --> 00:24:41.155
And so that's largely why we started these two programs and why we've redone our food menus and why we've changed the aesthetic of our promotions and why we've tried to make our branding more consistent.

00:24:41.155 --> 00:24:42.797
Not only the space has changed.

00:24:42.797 --> 00:24:45.919
Our service has increased, our selections have increased.

00:24:45.919 --> 00:24:52.343
And help us as a member, help us influence where these selections go.

00:24:52.343 --> 00:24:52.982
The doors open.

00:25:02.517 --> 00:25:04.643
So it's all about customizing that experience for our members.

00:25:04.643 --> 00:25:12.380
You just nailed it and that's going to be the clip at the beginning of the episode that hooks people in that.

00:25:12.380 --> 00:25:13.980
That whole, that whole bit was so good, that was so good, and you waited till the very end.

00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:15.496
Look at you full of surprises.

00:25:15.496 --> 00:25:16.073
No, thank you so much for coming on.

00:25:16.073 --> 00:25:17.666
It was a pleasure speaking with you.

00:25:17.666 --> 00:25:24.691
Thanks for uh shedding some light on uh, on you and your club and your career and, uh, these cool little things that you've been doing.

00:25:24.691 --> 00:25:25.654
So thank you so much.

00:25:26.944 --> 00:25:28.048
Yeah, Danny, thank you so much.

00:25:28.048 --> 00:25:28.750
Pleasure's mine.

00:25:28.750 --> 00:25:31.086
I really appreciate being able to chat with you today.

00:25:31.266 --> 00:25:32.710
Hope you all enjoyed that episode.

00:25:32.710 --> 00:25:34.494
Jay, thank you so much for coming on.

00:25:34.494 --> 00:25:35.788
That was so much fun, thank you, thank you.

00:25:35.788 --> 00:25:38.855
Thank you, if you have not done so already like, share, subscribe.

00:25:38.855 --> 00:25:40.326
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00:25:40.326 --> 00:25:42.951
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00:25:46.557 --> 00:25:52.167
Wherever you consume it, it means nothing, or it means a lot and costs nothing.

00:25:52.167 --> 00:25:53.611
That's this episode.

00:25:53.611 --> 00:25:54.574
Hope you all enjoyed that.

00:25:54.574 --> 00:25:55.655
I'm your host, danny Corby.

00:25:55.655 --> 00:25:57.681
Until next time, I'm John LePetit.