Wally MacNeil and Bob Rash wanted to offer their customers at Mac’s Acadian Seafood Shack in Saline something more than a meal. They wanted to offer a dining experience that was part good food, part social hour and part education. 

They kicked off their new Connoisseur Club in late January, a monthly prix fixe event that will see an off-menu meal paired with wines, a presentation on a food or wine theme and the camaraderie that comes from breaking monthly bread with other members. 

The club offers Mac’s a chance to flex its culinary wing past its seafood-themed menu along with a chance to grow the restaurant.

Bob Rash, above, co-owns Mac's Acadian Seafood Shack with Wally MacNeil.

Janet Miller for AnnArbor.com

Mac’s opened in 1997, with Rash investing as a partner three years ago, taking up the business end of Mac’s. While Rash’s background was in health care marketing, he was a restaurant regular and friends with MacNeil.

“In my health care work, I’d taken more than 100 trips to Europe and around the world," Rash said. "I had a lot of experience with restaurants from the consumer side.”

Rash brought a few changes. The appearance of the menu was cleaned up, giving it a more upscale look. Specials were marketed more aggressively, and patio seating for 40 was added during warm months. Technology was used to market the restaurant, including assembling a database of customers with weekly notices sent out to 5,000 e-mail addresses.

And Mac’s began adding special events, such as a lobster festival in the summer and an oyster festival twice a year.

“Every little bit helps,” Rash said. “My philosophy is that you don’t try and hit homeruns. You try and hit singles. Gradually, things build up.”

Now, it’s time to offer the Connoisseur Club as another special event. Mac’s is starting to recover from a slowdown that began in October 2008. Business was bad, Rash said.

“December ’08 was just terrible. It was a very different December than what we were used to," he said.

December 2008 revenue was down 25 percent from the year before, he said.

“People weren’t having Christmas parties. One Friday night when it snowed, we had just 30 people all night. All the stars were misaligned.” And it carried over into 2009. “People stopped ordering appetizers or desserts. They ordered a glass of wine rather than a bottle.”

But things began to pick up last September and December 2009 was close to December 2007 sales. “We’re seeing a good come back,” Rash said.

That brought the idea of a Connoisseur Club, Rash said. “We wanted to take the atmosphere of Mac’s and upgrade it a level. We wanted to offer a really exquisite meal paired with wines and learning. We wanted to make the meal itself an experience, but also have a guest speaker, maybe even some chefs from Ann Arbor will come and prepare a meal.”

The first meeting of the Connoisseur Club was Jan. 20 with about 30 members, MacNeil said, and where diners were served an Italian-themed meal of antipasto, caprese salad, a pesto linguine and veal ossobuco alla Milanese with risotto followed by tiramisu.

“There were rave reviews and people said they were going to get their friends to come,” MacNeil said. The club meets in the private space downstairs from Mac’s and begins with a social hour followed by a five-course meal and wine.

Annual cost to join the club is $100 for a single and $175 for a couple, with an additional $20 charged each person for the meal. Membership also buys a 5 percent discount off the regular menu throughout the year. The goal is to have 100 members.

The date for the February dinner hasn’t been set but the menu will probably be Spanish-themed, MacNeil said.