National Liberal Club - London
The National Liberal Club is one of the largest, privately owned members clubs and is situated in Westminster, overlooking the River Thames in London. Founded in 1882, the National Liberal Club was built with stunning architecture, interior decor and was at the time of construction London’s largest purpose-built clubhouse and the first of London’s major ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ to admit women.
Having somewhat lost its way in terms of food and beverage catering and in making significant financial losses, the Consultancy was contacted by the Club’s Directors and management team in order to enhance the venue to enable the catering department to provide one of the best club dining and hospitality experiences in London.
The first point of action was to carry out a root and branch review of the complete food and beverage service operations. The Consultancy provided a detailed report which identified a number of key areas and factors that would allow the club to improve and maximise its foodservice operations. Our review identified that the majority of the existing catering equipment was dated and coming to the end of its useable life. As a result of this the Consultancy recommended a redesign of the current commercial kitchen and an update of all heavy equipment. Our Consultants studied the kitchen and came up with a design and layout that would allow increased workflows and enable the catering team to maximise efficiency and create high end menu items. These designs were provided initially as 2D concepts before having the layouts signed off by the client and subsequently converted into detailed 3D 4K renders of the proposed new commercial kitchen.
A full procurement process was then carried out on behalf of the Liberal Club to invite bids from a number of experienced and highly qualified kitchen houses. A suitable kitchen house was identified and appointed based on their ability to meet the high and detailed criteria specified. Parts of this criteria included value for money, ability to meet the client specifications and an expert knowledge of carrying out works within similar locations.
Identified opportunities
During our report it was also identified that the menus at the Club required updating according to current food trends. Our consultant worked very closely with our development chef and a nutritionalist in order to produce a number of concept menus. These included the day-to-day service at the club as well as banqueting and events menus. Our consultant and development chef then worked with the on-site catering team to implement these menus and ensured detailed training was carried out ensuring each team member was sufficiently knowledgeable on the new menus and their items. Throughout our investigation our consultant identified a number of areas that were causing significant financial losses to the Liberal club. We identified that the client was paying significantly higher than the market value for a large range of their food and beverage products and carried out a detailed benchmarking exercise which led to moving all of the food and beverage purchasing to a buying group, providing a financial return. Through implementing these changes, in just a few months the client was breaking even, and is now on course to make a significant profit on its foodservice operation.