I recently read Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table [Kindle], a memoir slash business book slash culinary tour de force from the creator of Union Square Cafe, Shake Shack, and like 18 more of New York’s most critically acclaimed restaurants.
Danny explains the power of a philosophy he coined “Enlightened Hospitality”, a sort of hospitality 2.0 that means to not only go above and beyond in satisfying your customers, but also to broaden and correctly prioritize your business’s complete universe of constituents:
Prioritizing those people in the following order is the guiding principal for practically every decision we make, and it has made the single greatest contribution to the ongoing success of our company:
1. Our employees
2. Our guests
3. Our community
4. Our suppliers
5. Our investors
Here are the rest of my favorite highlights from the book (all direct quotes):
- Within moments of being born, most babies find themselves receiving the first four gifts of life: eye contact, a smile, a hug, and some food. We receive many other gifts in a lifetime, but few can ever surpass those first four. That first time may be the purest “hospitality transaction” we’ll ever have, and it’s not much of a surprise that we’ll crave those gifts for the rest of our lives.
- I understood on a gut level that if I handicapped the location correctly, and could successfully play a role in transforming the neighborhood, my restaurant, with its long-term lease locked in at a low rent, could offer excellence and value.
- The discos of the 1970s had given way to the coked-up nightclubs of the early 1980s, which in turn gave way to stadium-size restaurants where the food was really nothing more than a prop in an ersatz nightclub scene.
- But hospitality, which most distinguishes our restaurants—and ultimately any business—is the sum of all the thoughtful, caring, gracious things our staff does to make you feel we are on your side when you are dining with us.
- Shared ownership develops when guests talk about a restaurant as if it’s theirs. They can’t wait to share it with friends, and what they’re really sharing, beyond the culinary experience, is the experience of feeling important and loved.
- I might just walk over to a table and say, “Thanks for being here.” That puts the ball in the other court. The encounter either does or doesn’t advance from there.
- Most important, I watch my staff members. Are they enjoying one another’s company? And are they focused on their work? If the answer to both questions is yes, I feel confident that we’re at the top of our game.
- My goal is to earn regular, repeat patronage from a large number of people—40 percent of our lunch business and 25 percent of our dinner business—who will dine at our restaurants six to twelve times a year.
- when she had previously worked for Mary Kay Cosmetics, Mary Kay would teach the sales people that everyone goes through life with an invisible sign hanging around his or her neck reading, “make me feel important.”
- Invest in your community. A business that understands how powerful it is to create wealth for the community stands a much higher chance of creating wealth for its own investors. I have yet to see a house lose any of its value when a garden is planted in its front yard. And each time one householder plants a garden, chances are the neighbors will follow suit.
- Starbucks took the notion of drinking good coffee (and standing in line to buy it) and figured out how to make the experience of drinking coffee with a community of other like-minded people become the real star of the show. The company also learned to superimpose its blueprint onto thousands of locations north, south, east, and west, while also conveying the sense that each Starbucks belonged to its particular community.
- In fact, it generally takes two to three years for our new restaurants to even approach their ultimate potential for excellence. And this is because it takes that long for a restaurant’s soul to emerge.
- It is not your job to get upset. You just need to understand: that’s what they do. Your job is just to move the shaker back each time and let them know exactly what you stand for. Let them know what excellence looks like to you.
- Every business needs a core strategy to be what I call always on the improve, and for us it’s constant, gentle pressure.
- And managers must learn to use the fire in their own bellies as a way to fuel and refuel their own ongoing passion for this business. If leaders lack fire, why would anyone want to follow them?
- With each year I’ve spent as a leader, I’ve grown more and more convinced that my team—any team—thirsts for someone with authority, and power, to tell them consistently where they’re going, how they’re doing, and how they could do their job even better.
- Nothing about being the CEO at a restaurant company had diminished my yearning to be in my restaurants all the time. The only way I can be effective is to remain a high-touch leader and stay involved with our staff, our guests, and our product. It’s rare that I’m in my office more than 25 percent of my day.
- As I always point out to managers and staff members, the single most powerful key to long-term success is cultivating repeat business, and ultimately regular guests. I don’t believe you even enter the competition for regulars until you get people to try your product for at least a third time.
- Stanley Marcus was absolutely right. By viewing mistakes as opportunities to repair and strengthen relationships, rather than letting them destroy relationships, a business is paving its own road to success and good fortune.
- It’s not genuine hospitality when the host fails to make eye contact, fails to smile, or fails to thank the guests for coming. It’s also inhospitable when a host rushes ahead of you while showing you to your table, making you feel like a dog being yanked along on a leash.
- When guests make reservations online using OpenTable.com, their two most frequent special requests are, “Quiet table, please” or “Romantic table.”
- In order to do a gut check on how much I really want to take a space or do a deal, I always ask myself whether I would do this deal if it were given to me for free.
- In hiring chefs, my goal is to do three things: develop a close, mutually trusting and respectful relationship; establish a shared vision of what the food should be; and encourage them to search their own heart and soul for inspiration, urging them to go further than they’ve ever gone before.