RSF Golf Club restaurant to close on additional weekday

The Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club restaurant will be temporarily closed on Tuesdays.

The RSF Association board approved RSF Golf Club General Manager Todd Huizinga’s proposal for the closure at a special board meeting on June 29, held via Zoom.

Already closed with the rest of the golf club on Mondays, Huizinga said Tuesdays are the slowest day of the week for the restaurant, followed by Sundays. There is also a struggle with staffing shortages— RSF Association Manager Christy Whalen said the week before she had to close the restaurant on an emergency basis due to lack of staffing in the kitchen. The restaurant is currently only 50% staffed. “We are doing everything we can to attract qualified candidates,” Whalen said.

In 2019, the RSF Association approved a cost-sharing agreement with the golf club to split the cost of running the restaurant. RSF Association Chief Financial Officer Seth Goldman said a calculation was developed and in 2020 and 2021 there was a built-in cap of $300,000 for the RSF Association’s contribution.

Last year, the RSF Association board agreed to a golf club request to add a portion of the administrative costs to the allocation. With the restaurant losses and administrative costs amounting to $942,000, the RSF Association’s contribution went up to $471,000.

The 2022-23 budget approved in May includes an operating loss for the restaurant that has grown to $1,340,000. Including projected capital expenditures and the administrative allocation, the shared amount is $1.6 million and the RSF Association’s contribution was budgeted for $807,000.

The RSF Association’s budget includes $580,750 in deficit spending for 2022-23.

A joint committee has been looking at a potential restaurant remodel and last year the RSF Association and the RSF Golf Club committed $80,000 toward refining design plans. Nothing yet has come before the board.