The Club is the Heart of the Community, the Kitchen is the Heart of the Club

Everyone knows that having a great food offering is key to getting people in the door of a club. As an industry, we talk about it all the time.

At Bathurst RSL, improving our food offering and having something enticing to offer our community has been a key focus for us in recent years and we’ve been incredibly proud that we’ve won the Perfect Plate Award for our region two years running.

For a medium-sized club, our footprint is relatively small, and we don’t really have multiple venues. We have a Bistro, a Coffee Shop area and our ‘hole in the wall’ coffee shop at the front of the Club, The Grind. Our Bistro has always offered the staple roasts, schnitzels and burgers and we’ve tried to keep our prices reasonable for members.

However, in recent years we’ve worked hard to add more exciting options, still coming out of the same kitchen, to provide better choices for those looking for something more. Each week, one of our chefs is tasked with putting together a feature dish to post on social media, aimed at enticing people to visit the Club. We don’t post Daily Specials — we post a weekly Chef’s Suggestion. We have found that this generates discussion and engagement with members and has challenged perceptions locally about “club food”.

We’re also really excited about our dry-aged steak offering. Whilst it’s at a much higher price point than you might expect to see in a club, we find that it sells really well and gets people talking. We’ve re-jigged our Bistro menu so that we have our traditional fare listed, with a separate section for our higher-end ‘Signature Dishes’ and another section for our dry-aged steak, which is offered subject to availability. We also have the largest gluten-free menu in Bathurst.  

Essentially, we’re doing our best to cover the field and offer something for everyone. We’ve seen continued growth in our food business, especially in the Bistro, even during these more challenging times.

I’m blessed to have an amazing team at the Club, especially our Catering team who do their best every day to make sure we put out great quality food. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for a third Perfect Plate win this year with our new competition dish: Saltbush & Pepper Berry, Frenched Cowra Cutlets. We know there’s some tough competition in this amazing industry and we wish everyone all the best as we head into the competition!