The Grand View Lodge Resort & Spa: Enjoy the View
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By Kathryn Jones   
Friday, 02 May 2008
smc Grand View Lodge says it is adapting its menu to the more sophisticated tastes of its customers.
Grand View Lodge says it is adapting its menu to the more sophisticated tastes of its customers.




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From its 1918 beginnings as a “little fishing camp” with room for 10 guests to an all-encompassing vacation destination of seven small villages that can entertain 800, the Grand View Lodge Resort & Spa in Nisswa, Minn., has always been known for quality and consistency, General Manager Mark Ronnei says. This is particularly true for its seven dining establishments, he adds.

“We are primarily three things: conferences, families and golf,” Ronnei explains. Grand View Lodge has three golf courses called the Pine, the Preserve and Deacon Lodge, the last of which is an Arnold Palmer exclusive. The lodge serves 80,000 rounds of golf a year and has three golf course food venues to meet the needs of its hungry golfers: Freddy’s, The Preserve and Palmer’s Grill.

“Our golf clientele is Midwestern folks who want a good meal – larger portions, nothing fancy – and they want it to be the same every time,” Ronnei says. “They want to count on consistency, so we have a menu of burgers, sandwiches and salads; and we have had very good success with keeping the same basic menu.” However, he notes, wraps have been added to the menu in recent years because they’re a healthier alternative that is also easier to eat on the golf course.

Sherwood Forest
During the summer, Grand View Lodge offers families a complimentary breakfast and evening meal in a modified American plan package. A popular dinnertime option is Sherwood Forest, an 80-year-old offsite eatery constructed with massive cedar logs. The restaurant is tucked so far in the woods that patrons are offered a 45-minute scenic boat ride to the location and are later brought back to the resort in a van. “This is lake country,” Ronnei explains. “There are 250 lakes within 15 minutes of where we are.”

Sherwood Forest chefs use an oak-fired grill to prepare and serve Kansas City dry-aged beef. “It’s a homerun,” Ronnei asserts. “It’s phenomenal.” In addition, the restaurant is well known for its walleye fish dishes. In fact, the entire resort serves four tons of walleye annually. It also has a 70- to 80-bottle rotating wine list. “We usually get 170 people a night in the summer and we’re sold out probably 70 percent of the time,” Ronnei notes. “For rural Minnesota, that’s pretty good.”

Mama Mia!
The Italian Garden is also a guest favorite because it is a bright yellow cottage “buried in flowers,” Ronnei describes. “The grounds are exquisite.” It’s also known for its unconventional serving practices, which the lodge calls “Mama Mia style.” There is no menu and every dish is served family style.

“You don’t order; food just starts showing up,” Ronnei says. “If you want something that hasn’t shown up yet, we’ll bring it to you. It gives waitrons a chance to take care of people. Customers don’t have to worry about ordering or choosing; all we do is bring them the food and make sure they have enough wine.”

Just like an old Italian grandmother making dinner for her large family, the restaurant often tries out new recipes on its patrons. “In the middle of the meal, the waitron will come out and say, ‘Here is a test dish that we’re thinking about adding to the menu,’ and guests will all take a taste and let the waitron know exactly what they think about it,” Ronnei says. “We want our guests to determine what should go on the menu.”
    
Hit the Beach
The Beach Pavilion is a popular daytime eatery. “We have a lot of kids eating there during the day when they’re at the beach or the pool,” Ronnei says. “We’ve had a tremendous reaction to our new healthy lunch program. People are more conscious about health food, whether it’s cut-up apples in a cup or salads. They don’t want their kids eating junk food even on vacation.”

Aside from its seven dining establishments, Grand View Lodge offers lakeside barbecues during the evenings for family reunions, conferences or golf groups. In fact, all year round, the resort hosts events. “[For one client during the winter], we set up a tent on the ice and drove them out in vans where they fished in ice houses and had cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and dinner in a heated tent with a carpeted floor in the middle of a lake,” he says. “It’s an interesting place [all year].”

Consistently Good
The challenge facing all restaurateurs, Ronnei says, is growing customer sophistication. “Customers are more sophisticated with their dining options,” he notes. “If they want a steak they go to a steakhouse; if they want shrimp, they’ll go to a seafood restaurant. We try to be all things to all people and that’s difficult to pull off because people’s quality specifications are so high, especially in areas that are more affluent.

“We react to that by investing in training for our seasonal staff and quality food. It has to be simple; it has to be something we can replicate. That is part of the reason we do these tastings at the restaurants. We can guess all we want, but let’s have our customers tell us what they really want. What our guests want is predictable, comfortable, welcoming and fun, and we’re going to give it to them.”
 
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