FEATURE: REFURBISHMENT

Burning ambitions

After the biggest renovation in 70 years, Dee Why RSL club boss Bruce McLean tells Grant Jones about the final piece in the puzzle.

DEE WHY RSL has just put the finishing touches on its three-year, six-stage renovation, reputed to have cost about $100million. It is the club’s largest redevelopment project in the more than 70 years it has existed with the club not only having to accommodate the wants and desires of existing members but also to ensure it would attract new members long into the future.

With the last phase of the redevelopment complete, the results are plain to see as soon as patrons arrive with the venue more in keeping with a luxury cruise ship or five-star hotel. From the entry point with its stunning porte-cochere, a modern, welcoming foyer and the refreshed uniforms of staff to the state-of-the art sports bar, sun-lit courtyards, and the return of much-loved Flame restaurant to a dedicated Bingo and Cash Housie Room, dubbed ‘The Gallery’, there’s not much that has been left untouched, back of house included.

“That was the last piece of that puzzle,” says Bruce McLean, Executive Manager – Operations and Compliance of the completion of Stage 6. “We are always growing as is our membership base and our the community expectations of what we are and we have to cater for all those expectations.”

Among the new facilities are Battery House sports bar, which can accommodate 1000 people who can watch any one of the 57 screens, play poker machines, TAB and Keno, while enjoying the largest operable sunroof in the country. The three glass panels can open in 20 seconds which highlights the light-filled space of the main internal area and two external courtyards. The courtyard offers a huge lounge area, fireplace, 20m bar, six fireplaces and a library. The upmarket food offering is based on a share menu and includes seafood and charcuterie platters as well as treats from the pizza oven. The club sponsored Italian pizzaiola, Luca Barbanera, to oversee operations.

“He’s the best pizza maker I’ve ever met and he makes up to 250 pizzas a night himself,” says Bruce. “There is also a heavy emphasis in that area on light music. We are having a lot of young, fun local acts now playing in the courtyard and sometimes the demographic is much older. You wouldn’t think they’d enjoy it but they are loving it and they are really enjoying the younger artists which is really exciting. We try as hard as we can to support local and we are supporting a lot of the young bands and they are moving from Narrabeen RSL which is now closed.”

“It’s more upmarket in its presentation, think upmarket cruise ship,” Bruce says. So, apart from “incredible pub food” and music it also rocks into the small hours when a DJ moves in.

“It’s a full pub experience within a club – which is highly unusual – and its works,” he says. “At that outlet, we enjoy a wide demographic with the oldies in the morning for TAB, they’re not working so they are available at 11 o’clock in the morning. As the day goes on, as 4 o’clock comes around, we get the tradies. A bit later we get the couples with kids in their pram and as the night goes on we get the younger demo for the music and the girls get together and have fun in a pub environment.”

Carparking had always been an issue but that has now been resolved with the building of the new car park, making Dee Why RSL a “one-stop shop” for entertainment in the area.

The club can now comfortably accommodate 2500 people in the building at one time while also catering for patrons with its bars, restaurants and entertainment needs.

Having all that entertainment closer to home within a new and improved venue also meant new signings with the club now at almost 52,000 members.

“(That’s) a quarter of the population of this whole council area,” Bruce said.

Financial and in-kind support also continues with the club offering assistance to about 120 community clubs.

“We had to trim that a lot because there wasn’t enough money in the pot when we were closed and not running, but we are still in a position where we reached out and gave a lot more money than we were required to give.”

The renovation was long and involved, starting in July 2019 with Flame reopening in November last year, with the venue having to navigate not only the build but numerous lockdowns.

With a long history in hotel management, before he moved to clubs, Bruce said the renovation was a lot better managed than some refurbs he had seen in his hotel days.

“We kept as much open as possible and if there was a roadblock in front of us, like losing a carpark, then we put on shuttle buses, we kept the patron members completely aware of every stage we were at in the build and we had fly-throughs on the website and showed the plans and it did end up looking like the artist’s impressions which we had plastered up throughout the club and on screens and hoardings. We had peepholes in the hoardings and time-lapse photography so when they were building the carpark, they could see the process.

“Every milestone we hit, we celebrated that with them. It was their money, they are the stakeholders so it’s very important that they’re involved because it’s not our money, we are not an investment corporation, we are a community members club, so we feel not only obliged but it is the right thing to do.

“So many of our members are not just here once a week or once a month say in a hotel environment, a lot of them are here four or five times a week. This is their sanctuary, this is where their friends are and the staff are their friends as well. But that doesn’t mean it was all smooth sailing. “Covid allowed us that extra time to navel-gaze and to actually plan things better,” he says. “Where Flame was, was going to be a Chinese restaurant and if it wasn’t for Covid and for us having time and looking at each other and ask ‘Is that going to work?’, and we just build it and they were going to come, we could actually work things out a bit more properly.

“As a result, we have ended up with a much better product and I think a wider appeal to our members. And we ended up with an independent bingo room for our bingo ladies, because we had time to stop and think.

“(Senior management) were the only people left standing during Covid so we had a lot more time to work out what we were doing. We were able to do the menus properly, to do the numbers, to find the best cutlery, to find the best crockery and we had the time to do those things and in my crazy day, ordinarily, I don’t,” he says as his landline rings in the background.

As for the response to the renovations, Bruce says not a bad word has been heard.

“I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t liked what we have done. They vote with their feet and they are coming in. The club has about 15,000 people coming through a week.”

Bruce says more plans are afoot, but won’t reveal anything just yet. But the recently liquidated Narrabeen RSL is not in the equation.

“We are big plans of land, but that’s not available, it was a lease, it’s owned by the (RSL) sub-branch.”

Keeping staff was key

WITH THE lockdowns being a constant and the duration of COVID an unknown, keeping staff informed and financially afloat was crucial to the club, says Executive Manager Bruce McLean.

“We had no issues with line staff and we had a very large retention rate,” he says. “We looked after staff during the closures and we made sure they were all financially sound and no one was in trouble.

“We had about 320 staff and we had a lot of check-ins and kept them informed as to what was going on along that whole horrible journey, and assisted them financially when it was necessary and I think we only lost about four people.

(Senior management) were the only people left standing during Covid so we had a lot more time to work out what we were doing.

“I’ve got 20 staff who have been here over 20 years, and four of them have been here over 40 years – 80 years if you count the double shifts a lot of them do. It’s a big part of their life.”

When it came to getting back to work, and filling vacant positions, the club again tapped into its workforce.

“We sent the word out. We had a heavy incentive program for our staff to refer a friend and that certainly helped a lot,” he says.

“There was a financial reward after they passed their probation successfully. We certainly had a lot of assistance from the northern beaches TAFE and they were terrific in supplying a lot of chefs and apprentices and we restarted our apprenticeship programs.”

Like everyone else in hospitality, the search is now on for senior managers, including supervisory staff and restaurant outlet managers. They will also get to enjoy new facilities – no staff eating lunch or dinner on milk crates here.

“A poor back-of-house becomes a poor front-of-house,” Bruce says. “Something like COVID makes you stop and think how important your staff are to you. Without the members and our staff, it’s just a building.”

Champagne and Grange tastes

FRENCH champagne and Grange Hermitage are just twoluxury items on the inventory of the revamped Dee Why RSLwith patrons treating themselves in a post-COVID world, saysclub boss Bruce McLean.

I’ve sold nine bottles of Grange Hermitage at $1100 a pop which is extraordinary for a club.

“Last week I sold three $300 bottles of champagne,” he says.“I’ve sold, so far this year, nine bottles of Grange Hermitageat $1100 a pop which is extraordinary for a club. There is amarket there and I can confirm that people have been treatingthemselves, particularly in the rush when we reopened.

“I’m very excited now that I can buy French sparkling wine bythe pallet,” he adds. “When I got here we had two (non-vintage)bottles of Moet that had sat there in the cellar for two-and-a-halfyears and no one was interested in them.

“(Now) it’s a completely different demographic, it’s growing upand younger ones are coming through and that’s what we havebeen very deliberate in doing is constructing new venues thathave an appeal to a younger demographic because they are themembers of the future.”

While the name of the Dee Why RSL’s restaurant, Flame,stayed the same in honour of the RSL’s eternal flame origins, theupmarket restaurant was moved to another end of the building.

“It’s a much better outlet now as its not a walk-through,” Brucesays. “A lot of people would be walking through while you wereeating a meal while going to other areas of the club but now it’snow self-contained. It’s open five nights and it is full every night.”

The older-style patron you expect to see in a club, those whoreally only want a schnitty and a schooner, are fast becomingthe minority, he says. While not all are ordering champagne orGrange, Bruce is in the process of redoing his wine list in the$70-$90 range as demand for quality increases. With cookingshows, the broadening interest in cuisine, an expanding rangein bottle shops and off-premise venues such as small bars,members are becoming more discerning.

“It’s enlarged everyone’s tastes and educated people and iscreating a higher expectation for food and beverage outlets,” hesays. But patrons still get bang for their buck. Take, for example,the 200g eye fillet for $34.

“It’s very good value and, with the execution, we take a lot ofcare,” he says. “It could be mistaken for fine dining but we are nottrying to be fine dining. All we want to do is have an upmarketoffering and provide great value.”