Turf Lounge, Toronto

Toronto

By Donna Boss, Contributing Editor -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 2/1/2004

Catering to Toronto's urban professionals, Woodbine Entertainment Group's new, upscale, casual lounge features high-end cuisine prepared in a "cozy" yet amply equipped kitchen and larger, basement production/ storage facility. The other featured attraction here: off-track betting for horse racing and other sports.

Turf Lounge's equestrian decor motif and plasma television screen monitors can also be found in its private dining room, designed for group meetings and special events.

Turf Lounge, a newcomer to Toronto's bustling financial district, justifiably earns the distinction of being called "unique." The 7,000-square-foot lounge venue integrates historic architecture with modern design to produce an intriguing environment that is conducive to socializing and dining. Food prepared à la minute in an efficient, 500-square-foot kitchen is served in four areas here: a bar, a smoking room, a lounge and a dining room. And the facility's distinguishing attraction - off-track betting - is available and omnipresent throughout the establishment.

"In the past, we have developed and marketed sites with betting as the primary entertainment component, and the foodservice as a necessary accompaniment," explained Jim Ormiston, executive vice president and COO for the Woodbine Entertainment Group, headquartered in Toronto. "At the Turf Lounge, however, we took a 180-degree turn. Here, the lounge and bar are the primary focus, with off-track betting as the featured entertainment, which no other restaurants in Toronto offer. The lounge does take center billing, but the draw is undoubtedly our equestrian ambiance that gets customers in the mood for horse racing. We're looking to expose horse racing to people - men and women - who are lapsed fans and who have never been fans but who are intrigued both as betters and also as potential horse owners."

The group's newest site, Turf Lounge, is located in the financial district's lively Bay Street section. "We had been looking for five years to 'replace' an operation we had run in Toronto's Sheraton Center," recalled Ormiston, adding that the hotel needed the space for other purposes. Though the location was exactly what Woodbine had hoped to find in order to attract urban professionals, the cost of development was steep.

"The Turf Lounge was built by splicing together three different spaces that were formerly an atrium, restaurant and bank vault," noted Martin Hirschberg, president of Hirschberg Design Group Inc. of Toronto, the firm hired for interior design and as the kitchen consultant. "Elements, such as the vaulted-arch walls, were designated by the city as 'historical' and we had to incorporate these into the design. At least half of the development cost was expended on heating, air conditioning and other mechanical and electrical systems." Even the ventilation system required for the exhaust hoods required complex routing, he added.

Customers enter the Turf Lounge through an Art Deco lobby of an office building. The first hint of what's to come upon entering the restaurant/OTB parlor is a bronze sculpture of a winning racehorse that has been encased in glass. After passing through the front door, customers enter a massive space created by historically designated, century-old limestone facades and 40-foot-tall vaulted-arch windows. "The original buildings were once accessed by horse and carriage through a courtyard," explained Hirschberg. "The arches were the doorway into the courtyard."

In order to design a private space that obscures the adjacent office buildings' windows, a bronze mesh screen was hung from the fourth floor. The screen is "interrupted" by three 54-inch plasma-screen televisions that show horse races and other sporting events, such as the U.S. Open tennis champion-ships and car races. One channel is always set to receive financial news. A ticker tape positioned over the bar allows guests to stay up-to-date with stock markets. During the day, natural light from skylights brightens the room; at night, three large chandeliers (which cost $15,000 each) produce a softer light. Marble floors and Lalique-style frosted-glass sconces further enhance the design.

A full-service bar was designed with back-lit transparent, faux alabaster stone. All beverages are prepared and served from this two-station area. It is equipped with a bar counter, storage counters with pull-out boards, two cocktail units, a glass froster and a glasswasher, two large European beer towers, an eight-door back-bar beer cooler, an espresso machine, coffee grinder and brewer, and refrigerators for white wine storage. (Beer is stored downstairs; red wine is stored and displayed in an adjacent smoking room). All compressors are remote so they don't heat up the bar. Lounge-style seats and bar stools can accommodate 60 guests.

To the left of the entrance is a 24-seat ventilated smoking room with lower ceilings, recessed halogen pot lighting and four intimate banquettes. The restaurant's wine collection is displayed here along one 10-foot by 10-foot wall.

To the right of the entrance is a lounge area, furnished with chairs made of wood and leather or fabric. Solid wood tables complement zebra woods and contemporary wall finishes, which were selected to lighten the environment. "We stayed away from a lot of heavy mahogany to avoid a masculine club ambiance," said Hirschberg. The high-tech components also reinforce the "non-club" environment. The entire restaurant is wired with LCD monitors and terminals with high-speed internet connections.

Behind the lounge is a 20-seat dining room for private parties. In the back of the lounge is a room with 20 Las Vegas-style racing carrels, each equipped with a television monitor for viewing horse races worldwide. Plasma television screens are positioned on a large video wall.

Situated behind the smoking room is the 500-square-foot kitchen (only 6.2% of the restaurant's total space), in which three chefs prepare a sophisticated menu under the direction of Chef Eduardo Viana. "It may seem small for preparing up to 450 menu items a day," said Stan Pyne, Hirschberg's manager of food facilities planning, "but the key element is the back-to-back efficiency of the cooking and refrigerated storage systems. Chefs just have to turn around and they have access to all the ingredients they need."

FLOORPLAN

Key Equipment List

1. Soiled dishtable
w/pre-rinse sink
2. Basket rack
3. Dishwasher
4. Steam hood
5. Clean dishtable
6. S/s wall shelf
7. 3-compartment sink
8. Pot storage rack
9. Pick-up table
10. Work counter
11. Undercounter refrigerator
12. Undercounter freezer
13. Double heated overshelf
14. Bread counter
15. Handwash sink
16. Chef's table
17. Hot food table w/heated base
18. Worktable w/hand sink
19. Exhaust hood
20. Chef's sauce rail
21. Fire suppression system

22. Salamander
23. Range
24. Griddle
25. Fryer
26. Spreader
27. Broiler
28. Reach-in cooler
29. Ice cuber
30. Storage shelving
Bar
31. Bar counter
32. Draft beer taps
33. Storage counters w/pull-out boards
34. Cocktail unit
35. Glass froster
36. POS
37. Coffee knockout
38. Glasswasher
39. Espresso machine
40. Grinder
41. Coffee brewer
42. Liquor display

43. Back-bar beer cooler
44. Wine storage (above)
45. Glass storage (below)
46. Compressor housing
47. Service counter
48. Hand sink
Basement Preparation Kitchen
49. Vegetable sink
50. Slicer
51. Food processor
52. Worktable
53. Prep sink
54. Walk-in cooler
55. Shelving
56. Walk-in freezer
57. Janitor's sink
58. Liquor storage
59. Beer cooler
60. Storage room
61. Mixer
62. Preparation counter

Included on one side of the kitchen are a chef's table, a hot food table with a heated base, a worktable with a hand sink and a stainless-steel wall shelf. Across an aisle is a salamander used to grantinee various menu items and heat garlic bread, and a six-burner range on which sauces and soups, such as lobster bisque and cream of broccoli, are prepared. Chefs fire up the adjacent griddle so these items can be held here at proper temperatures. Next on the line is one fryer for cooking french fries and freshly-made vegetable chips. The charbroiler is used for center-of-the-plate dishes, featuring chicken, steak and calamari.

Also in the kitchen are four ovens, including a convection oven used for roasting beef and finishing other menu items after they have been pan-roasted and -seared. Undercounter refrigerators hold ingredients that are needed for menu preparation.

The kitchen's size was determined chiefly by financial calculations. "To make money, you need a certain number of seats," said Pyne. "To get the right number of seats, we made the kitchen as compact as we could."

The size was also limited by the dimensions of the ventilation hood. "Being a heritage building, we had to be very cognizant of ducting and how we exhausted and brought make-up air into the space," explained Pyne. "This facility was unusual in that the return area went down into the basement, traversed under the dining room and smoking lounge, came up through the wall in front of the kitchen equipment and goes out above the prep area. It was a very complicated job; even the exhaust had to go down before it went up, because we couldn't go through any of the existing heritage walls."

Situated along the other leg of the "L"-shaped kitchen are a soiled dishtable with a pre-rinse sink, a basket rack, a dishwasher, clean dishtable, stainless-steel wall shelf, a three-compartment sink, a pot storage rack and a pick-up table. Quarry tile was selected for the floors and ceramic tiles for walls because of the materials' resiliency and ease of cleaning, noted Pyne.

In addition to the equipment in the kitchen, a separate room down the hall, which accesses the dining room, has an 800-pound ice cuber and a small closet for janitor's materials. Three wait stations are positioned near the area they service. Like the kitchen, they are designed for efficiency. Everything a server needs, including utensils, condiments, napkins and POS, is available.

Ingredients that are incorporated into the menu are prepared in a 300-square-foot kitchen located directly below the main floor production kitchen. Delivered food is taken down an elevator where it is placed in a dry storage room, a walk-in cooler or walk-in freezer. Liquor is placed in a storage room adjacent to the elevator; beer is also placed in a designated downstairs storage room.

Along one wall of the downstairs prep area, which is also arranged in an "L," are a floor-style, 30-quart mixer and preparation counter. Across an aisle are a vegetable sink, a work counter, a slicer, food processor and prep sink. Once food has been prepped, it is transported up several stairs to the kitchen.

After a summer that was "slow," according to Ormiston, customer traffic picked up, ending 2003 with a "fabulous" December. "We're starting to reach critical mass and getting a strong after-work hours crowd," he reported.

"We are trying to change the viewing of horse racing," he concluded. When you come to our locations, they are modern, in contrast to the stereotype of OTB sites as raunchy places where food is just an after-thought. Turf Lounge is helping that. This puts horse racing in a 21st Century context." As for the kitchen? As Hirschberg and Pyne emphasized, the staff's ability to be efficient as they use appropriate E&S is the key.

Design Capsule Opened in June 2003, Turf Lounge is an upscale lounge offering off-track betting. Located in Toronto's financial district, the targeted customers are financial professionals - male and female, many of whom are not experienced betters. Turf Lounge is operated by Woodbine Entertainment Group, which manages 26 other OTB facilities in the greater Toronto area. The Group operates racetracks at Woodbine and Mohawk in Toronto. The company also operates the foodservices and the slots (2,450 slot machines) at the tracks. (Woodbine's annual food sales: $30 million; total employees, more than 600.) The 7,000-square-foot Turf Lounge is divided into four zones: the bar, lounge, smoking room and private room, in addition to the carrel/wagering area. The 500-square-foot kitchen, which produces approximately 150 meals daily, is supported by a downstairs space that is used for preparation and storage. Sales are expected to total $1.4 million annually; the facility employs 12 FTEs. Seats: licensed for 270; seats 170. The lounge is open from 11:30 a.m. - midnight, weekdays; 12 p.m. - 12 a.m., Saturdays. Turf Lounge's construction cost: $3 million. Kitchen cost: $800,000.

Owner of Turf Lounge: Woodbine Entertainment Group

Owner of Woodbine Entertainment Group: Private Corporation

Chairman, President and CEO of Woodbine Entertainment Group: David Willmot

Executive Vice President and COO: Jim Ormiston

Vice President of Food and Beverage, Woodbine: Eddie Stutz

Executive Chef, Woodbine: Joseph Lesch

Turf Lounge Chef: Eduardo Viana

Design Architect: Neil Munro, Young & Wright, Toronto

Interior Design and Foodservice Consultants: Hirschberg Design Group Inc., Toronto; Martin Hirschberg, president; Stan Pyne, manager, food facilities planning; Yoel Lagtapon, project designer

Turf Lounge's General Manager: Paul Mann

Equipment Dealers: Halkovitch & Associates, Trimen Foodservice Equipment and Hamilton Store Fixture

Construction Management: Eastern Construction, Toronto