Champion team rallies for tournament

zoom

VAN RENSBURG: the team can handle the challenge.

Preparations are already getting underway at The Aviation Club in the run up to the 2008 Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, which will run from February 25 to March 8.

While four-time winners Roger Federer and Justine Henin are heading the all-star cast of players, Chris Van Rensburg and the rest of the food and beverage management team at the club are busy recruiting a cast of casual staff that will make the event a success away from the courts.

"The casual staff is all local from Dubai. It's a mixture of nationalities and we work with an agency to find all the people we need for the various positions," The Cellar restaurant manager Van Rensburg explained.

"If we're lucky, some of the casual staff we bring in will have been doing the tennis for a couple of years, and the ones that are good we find try to find positions for here and train them as waiters or door staff. We try to keep them on as that makes it so much easier for us in the future," he added.

The Aviation Clubhouse is restricted to members, players, officials, VIPs and corporate sponsors only for the week of the tournament.

The Rainbow Room Bar turns into the players' lounge during the event and the VIP catering is carried out in Majlis, while The Cellar is taken over by corporate hospitality.

"It's 14 days of the event but around 20 days of making loads of food for loads of people all the time," said Van Rensburg.

"The [central] kitchen here is doing all the catering for the ball boys, referees and so on, and on the road there's a portable cabin that provides food for all the camera crews. For The Cellar it's easily 300 people for lunch and 300 for dinner.

That's 600 people, not even counting all the people coming through for drinks and bar snacks.

"For the corporate hospitality we've got a 14-day menu and we change that every day - starter, main course (with a choice of five main courses that can be ordered à la carte), and dessert. On top of that we run our normal à la carte and bar snacks menu as well."

Another challenge this year will be storing and transporting food in line with all the necessary HACCP and Dubai Municipality guidelines, due to the continuing building work on The Aviation Club grounds, explained Van Rensburg.

"It's especially difficult during the tennis to make sure the food goes out correctly. If it's a hot buffet on the far side of the complex, for example, it gets cooked here and transported in hot cabinets to the other outlet, where it goes into the warmers immediately and the chefs check the temperature," he said.

"We have to order so much, and it's difficult because where the loading bay was is in the middle of the construction site now.

We have to build another temporary kitchen on the roadside where everything can be stored properly according to HACCP and municipality standards.

"We've put in temporary plans with the municipality to make sure the food gets transported safely and properly received," he added.

Print | Email | Discuss this article |

READERS' COMMENTS

View all comments (0)

Have your say

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Security Code *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM