Pallas Care intern Isabel reviews Danny Meyer’s 2006 book on hospitality. This text was instrumental in developing the Pallas Care philosophy; so much so that we made Hospitality one of our core values, and incorporated these lessons into our Signature Training for employees!
Danny Meyer, founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality group, prides himself on being a human being first, and a businessman second. Meyer has found great success in the restaurant business, founding and operating eleven different eateries in New York City, and now worldwide with the expansion of his fast-food endeavor, Shake Shack. Meyer credits his success to his dedication to hospitality. He finds great pride in forming connections with his customers and creating environments where people can feel at home. In Setting the Table, Meyer tells the story of his life, and through it the story of his journey with hospitality.
Meyer begins at the beginning, starting with the restaurants he grew up frequenting as a child. Being born to a wealth family, Meyer had the opportunity to frequent many restaurants in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. His father owned a business that organized travel tour packages in Europe, allowing him to experience European dining in full throughout the course of his life. Starting as a child, Meyer kept a food diary, detailing all of his favorite gastronomical experiences. He took notes on what atmosphere customers preferred, the differences between “fine dining” establishments and family-owned restaurants with food just as fine, and how a restaurant and Paris is different from a restaurant in San Francisco or Rome. Meyer’s life was shaped by food and restaurants, even as he strayed down the path of a corporate salesman. Without fail, he always found himself drawn to food, even trading his six-figure salary for the opportunity to work in a family-owned and run Italian fusion café in San Francisco. Still, something was missing, and in 1985, Meyer opened his very first restaurant: Union Square Café.
Union Square Café had a very turbulent beginning, with customer walkouts, faulty construction, and an overly ambitious menu to name a few issues. The restaurant had trouble getting off its feet, but Meyer never wavered. To survive these tumultuous times, Meyer employed a strategy that he called an “athletic approach to hospitality.” This involved the occasional offense, occasional defense, and above all, a commitment to winning. To Meyer, “offense” is actions such as giving a glass of dessert wine to regulars or writing little chocolate inscriptions on free birthday desserts. “Defense” is the response to mistakes made by the restaurant. Meyer recommends letting the customer know you are on their side. When Meyer ran out of tables for reservation, he placated an angry customer with “I’d love to put your name at the top of the waitlist for 8:00 PM.” A simple but powerful gesture that makes the customer feel heard. Another philosophy of Meyer’s is just that: rather than the customer is always right, the customer is always heard.
Meyer likens the art of understanding customers to the techniques of fly fishing. He learned that in order to know what fly to use, you must first learn what the fish in the ecosystem prefer to eat. To achieve this, one could lift a rock from the stream to see what insects lived underneath. With customers, it is no different. Once you lift a rock, you may learn where they’re from, what style of barbecue sauce reminds them of home, whether they prefer the pickles on the side of the burger, or that their anniversary is next week, and that they haven’t picked a restaurant to dine at yet. Meyer calls this “ABCD” —always be collecting dots—and instructs his employees to follow suit. Collecting dots always allows him and his employees to form a deeper connection with customers, and these deep connections create the desire to return.
This ties into what Meyer finds even more important than the food it serves: the people it hires. Choosing the people who staff his restaurants was the most precarious task for Meyer. Meyer writes that these individuals are responsible for bringing life into an establishment, and no detail can be spared. From the chefs to the receptionists to the waiters, an air of charisma and kindness is a necessity. Meyer describes how greatly he dislikes giving his workers a prewritten script to use when speaking to customers; think “How are we doing tonight? Or “Are you still working on that?” Each experience should be individual, and hiring individuals with that personability and intuition is crucial for Meyer. To evaluate the performance of his workers, Meyer employs the “51% strategy,” in which an employee’s ability should be “51% emotional hospitality and 49% technical excellence.” This model is a little shocking: shouldn’t technical excellence trump all else? According to Meyer, no. He likens the 51% rule to moths flocking to a lightbulb: what keeps a moth at a lightbulb is not the brightness (technical excellence) alone, but rather the warmth (hospitality) it offers. The top 5 qualities Meyer looks for in a new hire are: 1. Optimistic warmth, 2. Intelligence, 3. Work ethic, 4. Empathy, and 5. Self-awareness and integrity. Technical skill is essential in any profession but in the restaurant business especially, the hospitality is often what keeps customers coming back.
Despite Meyer’s extensive strategies for success, no business goes without struggles. While grappling with the difficult launch of his second restaurant, Gramercy Tavern, Meyer confided in friend and department store tycoon Stanley Marcus about his regrets. In response, Marcus offered a piece of wisdom that Meyer shares with the reader: “The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.” Acknowledging that mistakes happened and cannot be undone is the hard first step to solving a problem. Meyer describes that the approach to problem solving must be “imaginative, gracious, generous, and sincere.” Meyer describes the process as writing a final chapter in a book, needing all of these qualities to create the most desirable ending. Meyer writes “when you acknowledge a mistake and genuinely express your regret at having made it, guests will almost always give you a chance to earn back their favor.” For this situation, Meyer has created a five-step plan. He calls the plan the “Five A’s,” which are as follows: awareness, acknowledgement, apology, action, and additional hospitality. This plan has greatly helped Meyer and his staff pave the way to success with mistakes well handled.
Setting the Table is a treasure trove of valuable insight into the art of hospitality, and how lessons from the culinary world can be applied to any profession and any role. Being able to connect with others is a skill that will never find itself obsolete and should be incorporated into just about any business practice. For anyone looking to expand their hospitality horizons, Setting the Table is a fantastic read.
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