The Facts of Wine:
The Sustainability of ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’

By Wes Hagen, Wes Hagen Wine/Hospitality Consulting and Ambassador: Native9 Wine, Santa Barbara CA.

In this edition of ‘The Facts of Wine’, and in this Board Room’s focus on Sustainability, I’d like to take a slight swerve from wine service to a pep talk on hospitality—and how it can transform our lives at work, with members, friends, and family.

Will Guidara’s book: ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ (2022) should be required reading for your entire Club staff.
• Will Guidara’s restaurant, Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan, is the only restaurant in history to skip a Michelin Star. They went from 1 star to 3 stars—a miraculous expression of their commitment to giving their guests an unforgettable experience and food—a flex that may never again happen in haut cuisine.
• This book changed my life in so many ways. I’ve read it twice now and it is the basis for my belief and commitment to hospitality as my life’s work and to teach others.
• I suggest buying copies for staff, reading a few chapters at a time, and holding monthly staff meetings to discuss how the ideas can be implemented into your club.
What Does ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ look like at the Club/Restaurant?
These are the foundations of Guidara’s book and philosophy, and how it might look at a Club:
• Create memorable experiences through authentic human connection. (Encourage staff to really understand the members personally, and entitle them to act on that knowledge for member joy and retention. Suggest that staff keep a notebook on customer interaction, and give them 30 minutes a day on the clock to parse and prepare to blow some members’ minds.)
• Going above and beyond expectations through creative and perfected hospitality. (In weekly meetings, ask staff to share an example of unreasonable hospitality that they performed, heard of, or saw. This can start with examples from the book as you read chapters weekly/monthly. Offer wine prizes, free golf, etc., for the best story or example each meeting.
• Empowering teams to care about each other, the management team, and their clients/members. Encourage team outings, vacations, education trips (to Santa Barbara Wine Country?), and teamwork during every shift and in every department. Socially and professionally integrate the front of the house and the back of the house for unity.
• 95/5 Rule. Spend 95% of your F&B budget incredibly carefully and judiciously, so you can spend 5% on crazy items and luxuries that will blow your members away. An example was Will’s insistence that diners at Eleven Madison Park were given snifters and a bottle of Cognac with their bill that they could sample or drink without cost. He also hired ‘dreamweavers’ whose only job was to research and listen to guests and fulfil crazy tasks (as simple as feeding parking meters or as complicated as taking a family sledding when it was clear they had never seen snow before).
• Consider a ‘dreamweaver’ at your Club. A dreamweaver’s job is to seek solutions for Members and their family and friends that are so over the top, they can’t help but tell their friends and other members. It could be as easy as squeezing in a tee time or a tennis court reservation, getting their car washed or detailed, as thoughtful as volunteering to drive a member’s Mom to a doctor’s appointment, so members can have a few hours respite from care. It could be as crazy as buying a member a new golf club or tennis racket, comping a special meal, or hearing a conversation at a table (the grandson has never been to the Zoo), and you fulfilling that dream. This ties in with the 95/5 rule, as the Dreamweaver and their acts of hospitality come out of the 5% you were careful to save from your budget. In a perfect world, every employee could be entitled and approved to make a dream come true every so often, and may even be budgeted a small stipend to make it happen.
What Does ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ have to do with wine?
• Have staff keep notes on the wines ordered by members, and discuss previous wines and how they were received the next time they are at table. “I recall you had the Justin Cabernet at your last dinner. Did you find it to your liking?”
• Have meetings to discuss how wines can be grouped into similar styles. “You mentioned the Justin was lovely, but you prefer a touch more elegance with your steak. I have a fabulous Bordeaux by the glass that might suit your palate perfectly.”
• Having Members taste and suggest wines for the Wine Lists, along with F&B or by committee, is a great way to integrate Members with wine expertise into the hospitality of your club.
• Challenge the staff to really understand th list and how the Membership interacts with it, and communicate that to F&B.

The Take Home Message:
• Unreasonable Hospitality never stops at work. If we can be amazingly friendly, prepared helpful, intuitive, kind, and insightful to our Members, then that should help us bring those same emotions home and treat our family, friends, and perhaps even our enemies with the same positive energy.

Next issue: Back on schedule: Teaching wine to your members: a practical and active approach.

Wes Hagen is brand ambassador and educator for Native9 Wine (native9.com), and an international wine consultant. He can be reached at we******@***il.com or (805) 450-2324