Setting the Table by Danny Meyer

Danny Meyer is the GOAT of hospitality. Simply put. From the principles of surprising and delighting guests with enlightened hospitality and shared ownership, to the necessity of community building, to 51% HQ and the “Can + Will” frameworks, I continue to learn and apply so much from the leadership and generosity of Danny over the years. This book is a classic. And to think Shake Shack started as a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park. Love it.

My Notes

Enlightened Hospitality
Hospitality - the sum of all the thoughtful, caring, gracious things our staff does to make you feel we are on your side when you're dining with us.

Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you.

Danny's mission with all his restaurants: Express excellence in the most inclusive,  accessible, genuine, and hospitable way possible.

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, loved and belonging. This sense of affiliation builds trust and a sense of being accepted and appreciated.

--> take genuine interest in the guest, read their body language, hunt for the details. Provides a potential opportunity to provide some hospitality. Build relationships by taking genuine interest in other human beings and allowing them to share their stories.

Collecting Dots - Dots are information. The more information you collect, the more frequently you can make meaningful connections that can make other people feel good and give you an edge in business. Using whatever information I've collected to gather guests together i spirit of shared experience is what Danny Meyer calls connecting the dots. If I don't collect the dots, I can't connect the dots. If I don't know that someone works, say, for a magazine whose managing editor I happen to know, I've lost the chance to make a meaningful connection that could enhance our relationship with the guest and the guest's relationship with us. The information is there. You just have to choose to look.

ABCD strategy - Always Be Collecting Dots

Everyone goes through life with an invisible sign hanging from his or her neck reading "make me feel important".

Medicine cabinet - Danny's ample collection of dessert wines, which they dispersed liberally by the glass as an apology to guests if something in the dining experience wasn't perfect

Investing in Community

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 neighbours will follow suits.

Know Thyself: Know what you are selling and to whom. It's rare a business can be all things to all people. Be the best you can be within a reasonably tight product focus. That will help you improve yourself and help your customers know how and when to buy your product - ex. At Eleven Madison Park (Meyer's upscale French restaurant), they started offering box lunches of a sandwich, bag of chips and cookie to the office building above them because they thought they were stuck at their desks and didn't have the hour for lunch. BUT, this wasn't a brand fit. They didn't have a clear idea of what Eleven Madison Park represented as a dining experience. Good value? For Special occasions? French? Sandwiches and cookies? Ended up abandoning the program and focussing on building dine-in lunch business one guest at a time. Lunch business doubled within 6  months

Blue Smoke BBQ

Danny opened a BBQ restaurant in 2002, Blue Smoke, above his friend's jazz club, Jazz Standard. So dope. Travelled all of America to learn about BBQ. Had to master smoking techniques with proper ventilation, etc. Most BBQ joints are on the "other side of the track", due to smoke and that's one thing people like about BBQ - the mission to go get it. Why hot dogs taste better in ballparks, pasta in Italy, etc. Context is everything. Needed to create a unique identity for Blue Smoke that was Manhattan, NOT a theme park / cliché BBQ place that could be anywhere.

Shake Shack

Created in 2004 for Madison Square Park. Wanted to draw the best elements of the classics, make it authentic for the present context and then execute with excellence. There was nothing particularly innovative about a single component of Shake Shack, rather, the key was how the components would blend together to make it feel original.

Started as a hot dog cart in 2001 - asked themselves if there was anything fresh they could bring to the world of hot dogs carts. Did a Chicago dog, with poppyseed bun and 9 toppings. Applied enlightened hospitality philosophy to the hot dog stand. Remembering people's orders, remembering names, etc.

Three summers later, the city offered a permanent kiosk which Danny bid for and won and become the first Shake Shack. Went to burger and shake stands all across the country in search for the best of breed. Launched to huge success. NYC Magazine hailed it as the "city's best burger".

Percentage of sales went back to the park / community. You can do well by doing good.

Hiring

51 percenter has five core emotional skills:

  1. Optimistic warmth (genuine kindness, thoughtfulness, and glass it at least half full)
  2. Intelligence (not just smarts, but insatiable curiosity to learn for the sake of learning)
  3. Work ethic (natural tendency to do things as well as it can be done)
  4. Empathy (how others feel and how your actions make them feel)
  5. Self-awareness and integrity (understanding of what makes you tick and accountability to do the right thing)