Life is a series of waves to be embraced and overcome.
Danny Meyer
Festive cocktails mean color, lots of color.
At the base level, a burger is a piece of meat and a bun with something on it. It's simple but it seems to make a lot of people happy.
Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions - for and to - express it all.
A cocktail done right can really show your guests that you care.
Constant, gentle pressure is my preferred technique for leadership, guidance, and coaching.
Hospitality is almost impossible to teach. It's all about hiring the right people.
Union Square Cafe is all soul, not brain.
One great worker equals three not-so-great workers, so it's worth paying terrific people not just for today but to find people that we think have upward mobility to become tomorrow's leaders.
A great restaurant is one that just makes you feel like you're not sure whether you went out or you came home and confuses you. If it can do both of those things at the same time, you're hooked.
A great restaurant doesn't distinguish itself by how few mistakes it makes but by how well they handle those mistakes.
Steak and its accompaniments - wine, vegetables, potatoes and generous desserts - is a primal source of pleasure to which many people can relate.
Human nature doesn't change. When enough people are comfortable enough financially, there is going to be human nature that wants to spend more money on better quality and, to some degree, status symbols as well.
It's always imperative to improve and to remain dynamic - or you'll become lunch, as opposed to serving it.
You wouldn't have the same art on the walls at every restaurant or the same waiter uniforms. Neither should you have the same service style at every restaurant.
Hospitality exists when you believe that the other person is on your side.
It's the job of any business owner to be clear about the company's nonnegotiable core values. They're the riverbanks that help guide us as we refine and improve on performance and excellence. A lack of riverbanks creates estuaries and cloudy waters that are confusing to navigate. I want a crystal-clear, swiftly flowing stream.
The most important thing you can do is make the distinction between customer service and guest hospitality. You need both things to thrive, but they are completely different.
Good service means never having to ask for anything.
Hospitality knows no gender or race.
There are three things that people pick up on the instant they walk into your home on Thanksgiving. They will be able to feel the human energy. They'll smell the food. And they will see, instantly, the table.
Earlier in my career, I needed to be the writer, casting director, set designer, leading man, and producer. I've been eliminating a lot of those jobs. I'm an executive producer right now. I still get to pick the best screenplays.
Long before Starbucks popularized the phrase 'the third place' - somewhere to interact outside of work and home - it was neighborhood restaurants that helped to define places like Union Square.
Ninety-five percent of all brussels sprouts come from California.
I'm a big believer that you can try to change the world based on philosophy, doctrine, and belief. But I think the thing that really drives the world is hedonism, the pleasure factor.
Service is how product is delivered - the technical aspect.
I just think the best way for me to be greedy is long-term greedy.
I grew up in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis. Our idea of Judaism was no bar mitzvahs and a Christmas tree that had a skirt at the bottom embroidered with the names of my grandparents.
I trust that McDonald's can find a way to sell all-natural chicken without raising their prices; we did that at Shake Shack. It is more expensive, and we took a slight margin hit, but we did it. And if we can do it, I know that much bigger companies can.
Restaurants and chefs have become followed by such a broad swath of the public, in a way that used to be reserved for sports stars, movie stars, and theater actors. Restaurants are in the firmament of today's common culture.
Comfort food is absolutely moving upscale.
The great thing about capitalism is that it's a system that works.
A delicious meal cooked by a colleague for many others nourishes not only the body but also the soul.
My favorite place is whichever sidewalk is beneath my feet because I am just constantly fascinated by walking and looking and learning. If I've already walked a street five times, then the next five times I walk it looking up, and I learn something about the cornices.
My history has been to grow the roots as deeply as you can before going on to the next thing. That's why it took 10 years to go from Union Square Cafe to Gramercy Tavern, and another 10 years to go from Blue Smoke's first location to its second, and five to go from Shake Shack 1 to Shake Shack 2.
My staff's job is to adjust to circumstances with technical precision and artful grace so that every patron has a wonderful experience.
In the restaurant business, as opposed to the theater, center orchestra is an 8 P. M. reservation. Orchestra on the side is 7 or 8:30. Mezzanine is 6 and 9. But people don't take it personally when they call the theater and can't get what they want.
I think that Shake Shack wouldn't exist had it not been for Twitter. I don't think you would have gotten a hundred New Yorkers to stand in line for an hour if they couldn't have made their time really productive and organized snowball fights, ordered free hot chocolate, and, you know, Instagrammed photos.
I couldn't sit in a chair in an office all day.
In order to encourage the cattle farmers to raise a herd of all-natural cattle, which is a several-year process, they have to know that it's not just Shake Shack that wants to buy it. They have to have other buyers who are willing to pay more for all natural.
If somebody doesn't want to cook at home or has more family members than they have room for, then it's great to be in a city that's got restaurants that are actually busy on the holidays.
I run in London, in San Francisco - any city that's got a waterfront or park.
Every restaurant needs to have a point of view.
Gramercy Tavern appeared on the cover of New York Magazine the day we opened, and it was five deep at the bar with people who were not necessarily here to dine. They just wanted to kinda sniff out the hot, new restaurant.
I never get sick on airplanes, which is incredible. You're basically in a flying petri dish.
A restaurant is a compendium of choices that the owner has made. If you look around a restaurant, everything represents a choice: the kind of salt shaker that's on the table, the art on the walls, the uniforms on the waiters.
When the economy goes sour, there are three different kinds of restaurants that do well: the smaller-scale neighborhood restaurants that don't ask much of you; those that have banked enormous goodwill by offering great value during the boom; and those with proven records of excellence, a sure thing.
You can't let challenges argue you out of doing what you know is the right thing.
I learned that you shouldn't take your most esoteric concept and fit it into the largest space with the highest fixed costs. It puts too much pressure on the restaurant to hit grand slams every day when there just aren't enough people who want to watch that sport.
If you develop a dialogue with me and take an interest in me, I'll want to give you the business. It's human nature.
