Stephen Hanawalt is the director of catering for the Athens Country Club. This story was newsworthy because it highlights a significant change in the leadership at a local, well-known venue.

Q: What does your typical day as the director of catering look like?

A: The best part, and what I like most about it is there isn't a typical day. There is a lot of correspondence with clients and members to help plan parties or reach out or reaching back out to people who are interested in planning parties. The great thing about the country club, and one of the things I like is we are reactional. I'm not cold calling. I'm not drumming up business. I wait for the phone to ring and then I help members plan whatever event they're looking for.

Q: What are the biggest challenges in managing catering for a country club, and how do you overcome them?

A: One of the biggest challenges, and sometimes it's not a challenge, but an opportunity, is that I work for the members. We have over 950 members, so if you take those and add their spouses or their significant others or children, I potentially have 1,000 different bosses, and it's trying to manage the club standard with what the member is looking for the experience.

Q: What was one of the most challenging events you've managed here, and how'd you handle it?

A: We had a tornado come through on a day of a wedding. Tree down you know, 20 yards from where the I mean, a massive 300-year-old oak tree down about 20 yards from where the ceremony was going to be. We didn't have power inside the building for the reception, so we we were able to get generators to go ahead and  and power limited equipment for the band, we were able to go ahead and and put candlelight in the ballroom so that we had candlelight, and we modified the menu on the fly to be able to be cooked with the equipment that we had that could be used off of gas and not just the electric. So that that was a challenge.

Q: What's the most successful or your favorite event?

A: It's gonna sound really weird, but I do family bingo for all the kids, and I get to call bingo. I don't get to call bingo. I've choosen to call bingo because I enjoy how excited the kids get when they come for, for, for things like that. Everybody wins a prize, and just seeing all the kids that come back over and over again. So again, it's a little, it's a little cheesy, but I like family bingo.

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