What Four Decades of Building Great Restaurants Taught Danny Meyer About Culture

Danny Meyer has built some of the most beloved and enduring restaurants in the US. The “secret sauce” behind Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, Shake Shack, and more? How diners feel when they walk in the door. His new book, What Could Possibly Go Right, is about a common obstacle in business. How do you grow without losing the thing that made people love you in the first place? Danny joins Jessi in the studio to talk about everything he’s learned in four decades of building businesses around hospitality, including how to scale a feeling. In this episode, Jessi and Danny discuss: The assumption Danny held at 30 that he has since debunked Why culture is what happens when you're not in the room, and how to build it so it endures The 49/51 rule: why the job is only half of what Danny is actually hiring for The six emotional skills that make up a high HQ (hospitality quotient), and why "soft skills" is one of Danny's least favorite phrases The interview questions Danny uses to reveal character, including one that stops almost everyone cold The jigsaw puzzle theory: why the worst hiring mistakes happen when you keep jiggling a piece that doesn't fit Why Danny's biggest leadership mistakes came from hanging on too long: to people, to businesses, to deals How to get to "no" faster, and why a quick, honest no is kinder than a slow one The five-year, no-tipping experiment at Union Square Hospitality Group: what worked, what didn't, why the pandemic ended it and what Danny replaced it with What Danny is still learning, and why he looks to younger people to teach it to him Follow Danny Meyer and Jessi Hempel on LinkedIn. RSVP here for a special edition of Office Hours this Wednesday at 3pm EST. We’ll be discussing how we might be able to get what we need from work if jobs disappear, inspired by this micro-documentary from the Hello Monday team.