Q&A - Adrian Simmonds

Twenty-one years after he first started working at the London Golf Club, Adrian Simmonds is back in a new role as his career has come full circle. We caught up with the club’s director of hospitality this month to hear more about his most recent career move and his F & B plans for the future. Interview by Pete Simm, The Azalea Group.

ADRIAN SIMMONDS

So you returned to the club last year, nearly 10 years after leaving following spells working at Royal Blackheath, The Buckinghamshire and Littlestone golf clubs. How did the move come about? When I went to Littlestone, they had big plans to expand their F & B operation which included transforming one of the clubhouses there into dormy-style accommodation but, as is the way with old-school clubs, things have to be approved by committees, committees then change, and nothing ends up happening. I was there six years and 10 months but towards the end a new chairman came in and he had a different vision. I’d come from The Buckinghamshire to Littlestone to build something but could see that wasn’t going to happen, so I eventually left in 2020. Last year, London Golf Club said they were going to have a tournament in August 2021, so I reached out to the head chef who was still a friend. I said to him that I was about if he wanted me to come in and do some work. Then the chief executive, Stephen Follett, and head of finance got in touch. I was thinking I would come back for a week, but we played a round of golf to discuss things and I ended up coming back full time. .

Was the plan to always do something in the F & B industry? When I left school, I trained as a chef. I then spent 14 years working at a wine bar and then, under the same owners, at a restaurant but they had a management change and I asked if I could go to a front-of-house position. I started off parttime before going full-time and enjoyed that a lot more, and 30 years later, here I am still at the front of house, looking after people.

What are the parts of the job that you really enjoy? I love making sure that people are looked after and trying to meet their needs. In any catering environment, we never get it right all the time: you go to a Michelin star restaurant and they get it wrong, I love making people happy on the day. I have been in golf since my early thirties, every customer that comes here I know, 100 per cent hasn’t come for our food. The thing about London Golf Club, more than any other club nearby, it’s all about the experience. You get to the gates at the top of the drive and you get a warm welcome; you drop your clubs off at the clubhouse and one of the team takes care of them; and we want that to continue when you come in here – for example, someone is on hand to greet you even before you’ve sat down. That’s the ethos that we want – if you start happy, you’re hopefully happy out on the golf course and, even if you haven’t played so well, you come back in and we make you happy, whether you have a drink or some food. What we want is for people to have a great experience so that they not only want to come back themselves but also then tell their friends to visit as well. It’s not just a round of golf here, it’s the all-round experience. We want to create something that people want to be a part of, whether it be as a someone that comes back once, twice or three times a year or as a member. That’s what all of us want as a management team.

How have you changed things since you came back? I came in and hit the ground running, as it was three weeks before the Cazoo Classic last year. From July 12 when I started until Christmas, it was full on so we kept things running as they were and then we have evolved things slightly and freshened up the menu. Golf food is ham, egg and chips, it’s a burger, it’s a tuna sandwich, so you can’t change the world but we have put a lot more vegetarian dishes on since I came together with healthier options, from a summer salad to edamame beans, pomegranate and

couscous. This has come a little bit from feedback we’ve received from guests and little bit from me knowing what people want.

Do you run your new F & B ideas past the team before introducing them to the menu and can anyone contribute? As a team – and that includes everyone from our chefs and people that are here five days a week to people that are part-time – we’ll sit down and I’ve always been open to hearing what anyone has to say so, if your idea is a good idea, we’ll take it on board and run with it. If it doesn’t work, so be it, but I’d rather people spoke up and the beauty of here is that we print our own menus so can change things overnight. That certainly wouldn’t happen at a private members’ club where it can be a painfully slow process to make changes.

Can you elaborate on how the club has adopted a more sustainable approach to F & B? We have started to bring our suppliers into a local radius from the club to help support local Kent businesses. Our butcher lives literally over the hill near Brands Hatch; our fish is from a company in Sevenoaks; and we’re with Anno Gin, Maidstone Gin and Dockyard Gin as gin is probably the biggest thing in this industry from a front-of-house point of view. We have got Shepherd Neame as our brewer and have done a collaboration with our beer so that we have our London Golf Club pilsner now which has gone very well with our customers. Shepherd Neame is actually brewing the Thai lager Singha themselves now while we also have one of their ciders on draught. In addition, the soft drink company for all my buggy and on-course items is a company in Ashford which is run by a very keen golfer who loves being in golf clubs. The materials we use in cleaning products is from a place just outside Dartford, while the major chemicals we use are from a local company that supplies all the hospitals. The owner and chairman of CK Facilities is a very keen golfer who sponsors a couple of young pros in the south (Matt Ford and Alfie Plant) and, because of the pandemic, got into golf. They were giving us chemicals, hand sanitiser, gloves, aprons and everything we needed in difficult times. The way things are done now is light years away from when I started, and we are very proud to support local.

How important is it that the London Golf Club is at the forefront of local initiatives like these? Very, as I would consider us to be the elite club in Kent. One of the things that we’re currently looking at is having different flavours of tonic water on a dispense system, which would eliminate the use of bottles. The industry is already starting to talk about that, in 2024, there is talk of a return to a deposit system on all glass bottles, so the less we use not only will it help financially but be better for the environment. This would be a good thing and it would be great if we can help with that. I know one of the projects that our CEO, Stephen Follett, has talked about is ways that we can condense down all our plastic waste so that, whether it be buggy, on-course or in the bar, you can collect all the bottles and then there are companies that will take the plastic away and turn it into clothing, so that then becomes the staff uniform for the greenkeeping department, the clubhouse or wherever. That is something that we are actively looking into. We know it’s a few years on but the world is constantly evolving, and we are forward-thinking enough as a company to be looking at that.