The first time a member spots the truck parked behind the rose garden wall at the Main House, the assumption is usually wrong. It looks like a stopgap, something wheeled in because the Clubhouse kitchen is mid-demolition and someone needed a Plan B. Watch it for a season and the truck tells a different story. It is not filling a gap. It is opening up ground that never had a kitchen on it before, and by the time the $24.5 million renovation wraps, it will still be rolling.
That truck has a name. Tin Lizzie, a 32-foot custom-wrapped mobile kitchen, joined The Ford Field & River Club's kitchen staff last year as part of the same capital plan that is now tearing into the Clubhouse, the Sports Barn, and the Golf Practice Facility. Members who assume a construction year means fewer places to eat have it backward. This is turning into the most spatially interesting dining season the property has had, because for the first time, food is showing up at the Marina, at Lake Dye, at the Oyster House, and under the oaks at the Main House on a rotating basis instead of waiting for members to come find it in one dining room.
A Renovation Built Around More Places to Eat, Not Fewer
Private club renovations usually run on a simple tradeoff. Close the primary kitchen, scale back service, wait it out. What The Ford did instead was acquire a second, fully mobile kitchen before the first hammer swung. Tin Lizzie's name borrows from Henry Ford's own history on this land. The nickname originally belonged to the Model T, a car that combined "Tin," a nod to its lightweight metal build, with "Lizzie," the era's slang for the horse it was replacing. A hundred years later, the club's culinary version carries the same idea forward: a mobile solution built for a specific moment of transition, engineered to outlast it.
That distinction matters for anyone trying to plan a summer around the property. The truck is not marking time until the Clubhouse reopens. According to the club's own announcements, Tin Lizzie is an integral part of the amenity plan itself, built specifically so the community can maintain full dining service through a multi-year construction sequence that starts with the Sports Barn and moves through the Clubhouse, Lake Dye Grill, and Golf Practice Facility. Once those spaces reopen, the truck keeps its rotation going, because pop-up service at the Marina, Lake Dye, and the Oyster House was never meant to be temporary. It was meant to prove those spots deserved a kitchen in the first place.
Where to Actually Find It
Executive Chef Luis Young has said the mobile kitchen's cooking capacity now exceeds both the current Clubhouse restaurant and Lake Dye Grill combined, which is part of why the rotation covers so much ground. Each stop gets its own menu built around the setting rather than a single traveling version of the same three dishes.
| Location | Setting | What Shows Up There |
|---|---|---|
| Main House rose garden | Everyday base, supplements regular dining | Rotating daily menu, day-to-day supplement while the Clubhouse is under construction |
| Lake Dye | Poolside, lake views | Casual fare timed to swim and workout traffic |
| Deepwater Marina | Waterfront, boat traffic | Pop-up service built around fishing and marina hours |
| Oyster House | Riverside gathering spot | Seasonal pop-up dining, including planned Taco Tuesdays and Fish Fry Fridays |
The practical upshot for a member deciding where to eat on a given evening is that the answer now depends on where you already are that day, not on driving back to a single building. That is a genuinely different way to move through the property than the club has offered before.
What's Actually Being Rebuilt, and Why the Number Moved
When The Ford's board first floated this renovation in April 2024, the price tag was $22.5 million, approved by a 90 percent member vote and covering the Clubhouse, Lake Dye Grill, Sports Barn, and Golf Practice Facility. By the time the project actually broke ground, the figure had grown to $24.5 million, still funded entirely by member equity rather than outside financing. That two million dollar jump between announcement and execution is worth sitting with for a second. The clearest visible difference between the two figures is Tin Lizzie itself, which the club describes as an integral part of the $24.5 million plan and which was nowhere in the original 2024 scope list of Clubhouse, Lake Dye Grill, Sports Barn, and Golf Practice Facility.
The rebuilt Clubhouse will include a wraparound dining porch, a new casual dining lounge, expanded kitchens, modern locker rooms, and indoor golf simulators. Lake Dye Grill keeps its existing character while adding an open kitchen, a multi-use beverage center, and a new wraparound porch over the lake. The Golf Practice Facility is being rebuilt around a 48,000-square-foot tee area with GPS-enabled range flags, a Himalayan-style putting green, and Par 3-capable range targets, alongside a new short game area, family putting course, fire pits, and dining patios. The pool complex is getting a full redesign too, with a zero-entry pool, family play zones, and a renovated poolside restaurant.
General Manager Jeff Dekruif has described the project as one that will exceed expectations, and the club's leadership has been consistent about framing the spend as a statement of member stewardship rather than a reaction to any single problem. The Savannah Business Journal and Club + Resort Business both covered the announcement, and Club + Resort Business called it the most significant amenity transformation undertaken by any private community in the region. Whether that claim holds up against every comparable Lowcountry club is beside the point for a member trying to plan a Tuesday night dinner. What matters locally is that the work is real, it is member-funded, and it is happening in phases designed to keep the property functioning the entire time.
The Season Keeps Moving Anyway
None of this has slowed down the calendar. The Ford Collegiate, a college golf tournament hosted by Georgia Southern, returned to the club's own course in April, drawing twelve teams including several nationally ranked programs in the same stretch of spring that included the Masters and the RBC Heritage. The tournament stays closed to public spectators, open only to family of the competing golfers, which says something about how much privacy the property protects even while hosting a marquee event. The club's Junior Summer Golf Camp, now in its second year by the club's own count, pairs young members with weekend interclub matches against Richmond Hill Golf Club juniors, each side hosting a day of nine-hole play. The Outdoor Pursuits team has also kept running its classroom-style fishing lessons, pairing tackle instruction with time on the water afterward.
None of that programming waited for construction to finish, and none of it moved off-site. The golf course itself, the 250-acre Pete Dye design with a parkland front nine and links-style back nine, has kept its no-tee-times policy through all of this, which is easy to overlook as a fact until you consider how many private clubs restrict access during major capital projects. Members are still walking up and teeing off whenever they want. The construction is happening around the golf, not instead of it.
The Actual Takeaway
The instinct to treat a renovation year as a diminished year is reasonable almost everywhere else. It is just wrong here, and the reason is specific rather than promotional. The club built a second kitchen before it tore into the first one, gave that kitchen a name with real history behind it, and used it to put food in four places that never had dedicated service before. When the Clubhouse reopens with its wraparound porch and the Lake Dye Grill gets its new open kitchen, Tin Lizzie does not go into storage. It keeps making its rounds, because the plan was never to replace fixed dining with mobile dining. It was to add mobile dining permanently, and use the construction window to prove out where it belonged.
For a member deciding whether to grab dinner at the Marina after an afternoon on the water or catch Fish Fry Friday at the Oyster House, that is the detail that actually changes the plan. This is not a season to work around. It is a season built to be lived in while the rest gets finished.
If you are weighing what a home inside a private club community like this is actually worth once the current amenity cycle wraps, or comparing it against other Lowcountry enclaves, The Agency Savannah can walk through what the market is showing right now. Request your instant home valuation or schedule a private consultation whenever the timing makes sense for you.
