El Bulli - top ranked, huge losses

[Michael Moore]

I just finished watching El Bulli - Cooking in Progress. I had read a great deal about Ferran Adria and his restaurant, but to finally observe forty chefs cooking a thirty-course meal was really something else. It goes without saying that the food looks spectacular, but the hair on my neck went up when a chef started gushing about the sound of a certain dish.

It really reminded me of golf at the highest end. Reservations were hard to come by, the emotional experience was paramount, people were snapping photographs left and right, and frankly, Chef Ferran looked like a rater on the tail end of a hit 'n' run binge. As I watched, the whole operation seemed unsustainable. And sure enough, the restaurant operated as a (substantial) loss leader for the empire and is now closed.

I have often wondered about top-ranked courses that exist solely to be top-ranked, market and profit be damned.

[Greg Gilson]

I have often wondered about top-ranked courses that exist solely to be top-ranked, market and profit be damned.

Hi Michael, what courses were you thinking about? I can think of a couple whose sole objective seems to have been to "be top ranked" but that was all about generating $ - in the 2 cases I am thinking of it was all about selling high end Korean memberships and the other was to sell resort rounds and fill a big Portugese hotel. In both cases , "being top ranked" seems to have actually done the business.

[Mark Pearce]

Michael,

As you say but then ignore in your comparison, El Bulli was a loss leader.  The benefit to the group of the restaurant (through sales of books, paid appearances etc.) outsripped the losses, as I understand.  The restaurant did not close because of its losses (which were not huge) but because Adria wanted to do something else.

Is there an example of a top golf course acting as a loss leader in the same way?

[Mark Bourgeois]

El Bulli was a radical thought experiment made real. As Mark alludes, they knew they were going to lose money and were not going to keep it open as a going concern.

Wish we did get to see something like that in the world of golf. Alas.

[Rich Goodale]

Is there an example of a top golf course acting as a loss leader in the same way?

The Lido comes to mind

[Daniel Jones]

I suppose it depends on the course's role in the "empire." Does Shadow Creek turn a profit? My gut tells me it doesn't, but I'm certainly the last that would know. Problem is, most loss leaders aren't allowed to be so for very long. At least in Adria's case, the strategy paid off...just try getting a table at his restaurant Tickets in Barcelona. 

[Tony_Muldoon]

El Bulli was, amongst other things, a very successful exercise in Marketing a brand. Their marketing was a sublime success and it's not correct to claim it was conceived that the "market and profit be damned"

The group could not have made a profit without it.  It's USP was the ultimate culinary experience.  
Would it have been conceived in the same way in today's economy?

Golf courses have been built as loss leaders in residential development for more than a Century.

[Michael Moore]

I can see where my initial post was a bit vague. My mind was racing after watching this kitchen operate.

Loss leader is something familiar to everyone. Here are my real questions -

Is there a level of golf course experience at which you simply can't turn a profit?

Are there any (joinable) vanity courses out there that serve as money-losing playgrounds?

[Mike_Young]

There have been plenty that fit that description within real estate developments.  They were there at a certain level to attract home buyers and once they have served their purpose they would be given to memberships who often were shocked....it isn't that unusual. 

[Mark Pearce]

Is there really a real estate development golf course that is of the same quality as El Bulli?  I don't see any world top 10 contenders that are real estate developments.  Is St George's Hill as near as we get?

[Tony_Muldoon]

http://www.top100golfcourses.co.uk/htmlsite/productdetails.asp?id=480

The legend has it that the man who owned Bic Pens wanted the most difficult course he could buy. Play was by invitation only.

It was his heirs who tired of the financial drain.


(I have no way of knowing how accurate "the legend" is, but the course remains very difficult nearly 20 years later.)

[BCrosby]

There have been plenty that fit that description within real estate developments.  They were there at a certain level to attract home buyers and once they have served their purpose they would be given to memberships who often were shocked....it isn't that unusual. 

What Mike says. I would think there are many golf courses that have served and now serve as loss leaders, either for real estate developers or for men with egos and a high worth.    

Bob

[Tony_Muldoon]

Is there really a real estate development golf course that is of the same quality as El Bulli?  I don't see any world top 10 contenders that are real estate developments.  Is St George's Hill as near as we get?

Pine Valley has a residential element and the financial worries certainly added to Crumps problems.


Without rehashing old arguments, residential property is written deep in the story of, amongst others, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, Merion, Sunningdale....

[BCrosby]

ANGC started as a real estate development.

Bob

[JimB]

Not a perfect analogy but this thread did get me thinking about the Discovery Land model.

[Niall C]

Is there really a real estate development golf course that is of the same quality as El Bulli?  I don't see any world top 10 contenders that are real estate developments.  Is St George's Hill as near as we get?

Mark

Balmedie International is surely a loss leader for the hotel and residential development that will go with it, and that is the best course in the world, allegedly 

Niall

[Peter Pallotta]

"El Bulli was, amongst other things, a very successful exercise in Marketing a brand."

Ah, sweet Mary, if THAT's the best we can say about an endeavour, it's a sad day indeed.

Reminds me of some very bad poet -- he never led one single heart to love, nor one mind to clarity, nor one spirit to peace, nor even one eye to shed a tear. All he did was to encourage one hundred more (equally) bad poets to foist themselves on a weary public.

Hurray! We don't have food or even a restaurant, but we have a shining example of how to 'market a brand'.

Blah, excuse me as I retire to Bedlam...

[Tim Gavrich]

It seems to me that the spectrum of prices of materials in food is much, much wider than in golf. Having never been to El Bulli but hving read and watched some items about it, it appears that Ferran Adria used El Bulli as a vehicle to try and approach some sort of Platonic ideal of a dining experience, with little regard for the business nature of the operation.

When you throw liberal amounts of things like truffles, foie gras and sea urchin around and go to extreme lengths to take apart and reassemble something like an apple, as Adria seems to have done, costs are going to skyrocket beyond the point where you could break even. But, as others here have observed, other parts of Adria's empire recouped a lot of El Bulli's losses.

There are lots of golf courses that are "pet projects" of some otherwise wealthy individual. Isn't that how Bandon Dunes started? The difference is that Mike Keiser didn't need to use a non-existent golf equivalent of truffles or foie gras in order to take a shot at approaching his own notion of a Platonic ideal golf experience.

[Jud_T]

This is actually a pretty good metaphor for a lot of the excesses of the past couple decades.  I'm over molecular gastronomy.  I want something that tastes really effing good, period.  Having it served on a pillow of pine smoke, or having my steak look like an ice cream sunday, covered in chocolate foam that is really deconstructed goose liver harvested at 20,000 feet by eunuch monks and served with a wine pairing with a 300% markup is the height of pretension IMO.  I remember being at a private tasting dinner at Charlie Trotter's and witnessing a server getting dressed down for some minor presentation offense so aggressively that it put a pall over the entire evening.  Eating and drinking, and playing golf, should be fun, period.  I don't need to go to any more food museums or food science fairs, and I certainly don't need any more pretentious golf courses or clubs.  Perhaps we should ceremoniously freeze the new Digest list with liquid nitrogen, shatter it into pieces and serve the shards to Ron Whitten on a frozen block of dry ice in the shape of Rees Jones' head with the logos of the half-dozen most offensive clubs frozen inside...

[Tommy Naccarato]

Michael, I'm sorry I'm just getting to this, but what a great post!  Remember how we used to do this with wine makers from Napa?  Example: Coore & Crenshaw have now evolved into Silveroak and Tom Doak is now Opus One.....

[Jud_T]

Michael, I'm sorry I'm just getting to this, but what a great post!  Remember how we used to do this with wine makers from Napa?  Example: Coore & Crenshaw have now evolved into Silveroak and Tom Doak is now Opus One.....

Tommy- Silver Oak jumped the shark over a decade ago and Opus One has been overpriced and overrated since the get go IMO.  Not sure I agree with either analogy.  Wine Spectator as Golf Digest and Wine Advocate as the Confidential Guide perhaps?

[Mark Pearce]

TOm Doak as Robert Parker?  Surely Robert Parker's taste in wines would suggest someone who loved Fazio's work?

[Josh Tarble]

This is actually a pretty good metaphor for a lot of the excesses of the past couple decades.  I'm over molecular gastronomy.  I want something that tastes really effing good, period.  Having it served on a pillow of pine smoke, or having my steak look like an ice cream sunday, covered in chocolate foam that is really deconstructed goose liver harvested at 20,000 feet by eunuch monks and served with a wine pairing with a 300% markup is the height of pretension IMO.  I remember being at a private tasting dinner at Charlie Trotter's and witnessing a server getting dressed down for some minor presentation offense so aggressively that it put a pall over the entire evening.  Eating and drinking, and playing golf, should be fun, period.  I don't need to go to any more food museums or food science fairs, and I certainly don't need any more pretentious golf courses or clubs.  Perhaps we should ceremoniously freeze the new Digest list with liquid nitrogen, shatter it into pieces and serve the shards to Ron Whitten on a frozen block of dry ice in the shape of Rees Jones' head with the logos of the half-dozen most offensive clubs frozen inside...

Jud,
This is an excellent post.   Apparently one the best prime ribs in Indy is at a place near my house - and I would have never have thought to go there judging it by the "waiting list" or it's exterior.   Just as that is, I'm glad there are places like Broadmoor (I believe), Kingsley, Dismal, and so many more, that are serving up good golf without all the bull. 

[Chris Shaida]

I have often wondered about top-ranked courses that exist solely to be top-ranked, market and profit be damned.

Isn't it the case that MOST top-ranked courses don't make a 'profit' given that most are private?  Augusta most likely makes a massive surplus, Pebble makes something, Pinehurst and St Andrews? anything else?

(btw, there's a theory floating around that ANGC makes more money each year than the net profit (or 'surplus') of ALL other golf courses in the world combined.  Any thoughts on THAT?)