This is the first of a series of articles with key people at Evesham Golf Club. Today your intrepid reporter meets our new caterer, Shani Kour.
How long have you worked in catering Shani?
About 30 years, I wanted to make sure my children were grown up enough to look after themselves after school before I went out to work. I wanted a profession and cooking was a natural choice as I’d always been passionate about food. I worked my way up from the bottom really and accrued experience and qualifications as I went. I spent quite a lot of my career in ‘corporate catering’ which means catering for employees in factories. I also catered for a care home.
So is Evesham your first golf club?
No, I ran the catering at both Oakmere Park Golf Club in and The Rushcliffe, both in Nottinghamshire.
How does Golf Club catering differ from ‘corporate catering’?
Well, it’s a lot more personal. At a golf club you can get to know virtually every customer and can get a much better sense of what works for certain groups and, of course, for competition or match day meals.
Tell us about how you go about putting together your menus
Well, as I have just said, I have catered at golf clubs before so I draw on that experience and, naturally, I have looked at what Neil offered before and made certain changes.
I am looking forward to trying out new things as well: the take-away service seems to be well appreciated; we’re just about to dip out toe in the water with a Sunday carvery and I am going to put on some themed nights which I hope will be popular, especially as the evenings draw in.
And as I get to know people better I can adapt things further and I always welcome constructive feedback – at the end of the day my satisfaction comes from satisfied customers. To be honest, I am not ‘in it for the money’.
That’s interesting so what can you say about your approach to pricing?
It’s quite simple really: I want to produce good quality food at prices which people feel are good value for money. Having said that, ‘value for money’ doesn’t mean as cheap as possible – that is not consistent with delivering good quality food or drink. I am running a business, I have overheads: utilities, staff and ingredients and I need to pay those overheads and I need to pay me!! So I’d ask people to not compare my prices to a ready meal or a bottled beer from a supermarket – that isn’t what I am offering.
When I am trying something new I’ll use ‘introductory pricing’ to get people interested to try it – for example the carvery. As I am sure people know from their own shopping, the price of ingredients is pretty volatile so I will keep my prices under review to take account of that but always in line with providing god value for money.
What are your biggest challenges?
I think for every hospitality business, since Covid, getting good quality, reliable staff has been a challenge. So I have to offer the going rate for such staff (see my earlier comments about pricing). So, whilst I am on this subject, if there are Members (or their friends or family) who want to supplement their income or pension with a few hours– primarily behind the bar, I’d love them to get in touch with me (text me on 07841 394448).
Thanks for your time Shani. Let’s end with one interesting anecdote about you.
Hmm, well I am not sure this is unique to me; I am sure most chefs have it. But, when I have a meal out I can’t help but study it and work out the ingredients and how it was cooked. And I can then go home and recreate it myself without reference to a written recipe. It’s a bit like a musician being able to play something without the sheet music but just by ear. It makes me a terrible dinner guest