At our not particularly upmarket club, the dining service is mostly there as an amenity for the roughly 50% of the members who live either adjacent to the club or in subdivisions within a mile or two. They love doing the Friday night dinner thing and they see all the usual suspects there each week. Problem is, those "usual suspects" are at most a dozen couples and fewer than a handful of families. Most Fridays there are single-digit numbers of occasional diners. So you've got this enormous kitchen and dining room with a moderately elaborate menu being put into service for about 30-odd people. And that leaves off the occasional Friday where for various random reasons nobody at all shows up or there are only a single-digit number of dinners served, total.
P.S. And don't get me started on the underpriced, overserved "money making" wedding banquets we host 25 or so times a year. By the time all the staff make their overtime we either lose a few dollars or maybe occasionally come out a hundred bucks to the good. But the staff love their twice a month extra hundred bucks and I suppose I should not begrudge them that.
Brent,
It seems our clubs share *some* similarities. Based on that, I suspect the weddings aren't really there to make money, but simply to provide enough work that they club can retain the staff (wait and kitchen) at the level desired for the 30 people on their Friday nights. I know that was one reason they extended that business outside of just members at our club, they were unable to retain the quality of staff they desired if they didn't have enough work to justify it.
Basically, need to go through all that effort to break even on 25 nights, because without it, you can't afford the Chef or waitresses on your own.