There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes at Manhattan Country Club that you might not know or have thought about. A lot of time and effort goes into making each experience special for our membership and their guests. I want to use this post to provide everyone a bit more insight into our daily operation and how it works. For instance, did you know that every piece of silverware is polished by hand for both a la carte and banquets?
If you said yes, are you aware that we have over 1800 individual pieces of flatware? That's a lot of sliver to maintain and upkeep.
The same can be said about glassware. We have over 1500 pieces of glassware in house as well. While not all of these can be used at one time, there is quite a bit of turnover. For instance, our 300+ water goblets used in Club XIX and Banquets are washed and polished on average, 4 times each week.
So that's a quick look at polishing. How about napkins? Our staff has a variety of uses for linen napkins at our facility. Each use requires a different fold which adds a more personalized touch to our level of service. Every bowl of soup served up gets its very own artichoke napkin fold. Artichokes, if you cannot remember or do not know, look like this:
Banquets, depending on their level of service and food selection, are given a multitude of folds from table tents, pope hats, bishop hats, flower folds, rolled, fans and many others. Other napkins that are folded on a daily basis include fork pouches for buffets or beverage stations, bread pouches for dinner service and silver pouches for use in Club XIX.
Perhaps the most unsung effort of our staff is their efforts in setting banquets every day. Manhattan Country Club does not do a great deal of large scale banquets, but we have enough small banquets (Referred to as SMERF's: Social, Military, Education, Religious, Fraternal) to make it seem as though we are constantly setting for those large events. Moving and rolling tables between rooms and storage closets, organizing buffets, skirting tables, setting beverage stations, stacking chairs, moving furniture and cleaning up after banquets are all very time consuming, not to mention physically taxing. These are basic expectations of our service staff on a daily basis regardless of which area they are working in that day.
I would like to thank our entire staff for the work they do on a regular basis. Without them, our operation would not be possible. It takes a great deal of time, teamwork, effort, organization and communication to make our club function. I hope this quick look behind the scenes was beneficial to everyone reading. Please take the time to thank your server(s) next time you are at the club. They are all rockstars doing a ton of work to make the membership happy. It's always nice to get a simple "Thank You" in what is often times a thankless industry. As always, feel free to share your suggestions with me.
