Former navy captain David Marquet says that in too many organizations, the people at the top have all the authority and none of the information, while the people on the front line have all the information and none of the authority. I was learning that, taken too far, corporate-smart could be restaurant-dumb.
Run toward what you want, as opposed to away from what you don’t want.
Some of the best advice I ever got about starting in a new organization is: Don’t cannonball. Ease into the pool. I’ve passed this advice on to those joining my own: no matter how talented you are, or how much you have to add, give yourself time to understand the organization before you try to impact it.
A leader’s responsibility is to identify the strengths of the people on their team, no matter how buried those strengths might be.
I still give The One Minute Manager to every person I promote. It’s an amazing resource, in particular on how to give feedback. My biggest takeaways were: Criticize the behavior, not the person. Praise in public; criticize in private. Praise with emotion, criticize without emotion.
When you ask, “Why do we do it this way?” and the only answer is “Because that’s how it’s always been done,” that rule deserves another look. Knowing less is often an opportunity to do more.
In restaurants—and in all customer-service professions—the goal is to connect with people.
I had learned from my dad the importance of intentionality—knowing what it is you’re trying to do, and making sure everything you do is in service of that goal.
“The moment you start to pursue service through the lens of hospitality, you understand there’s nobility in it. We may not be saving people’s lives, but we do have the ability to make their lives better by creating a magical world they can escape to—and I see that not as an opportunity, but as a responsibility, and a reason for pride.”
Without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference in someone’s life. You must be able to name for yourself why your work matters. And if you’re a leader, you need to encourage everyone on your team to do the same.
PDT was a cocktail bar in the East Village, run by my friend Jim Meehan. The initials stood for Please Don’t Tell, a reference to the tiny bar’s covert location, which you accessed, speakeasy-style, through a phone booth in Crif Dogs, a hole-in-the-wall hot dog joint. It was widely recognized as one of the best bars in the world.
“Success comes in cans; failure comes in can’ts.”
When we saw what a tremendous success we were having with the beverage programs, our management team came up with a list of every aspect of the restaurant that could benefit from some attention, including linens, side work, and educational training.
“It Might Not Work” Is a Terrible Reason Not to Try
The first time someone comes to you with an idea, listen closely, because how you handle it will dictate how they choose to contribute in the future. Dismiss them that first time, and you’ll extinguish a flame that’s difficult to rekindle.
Sir David Brailsford was a coach hired to revitalize British cycling. He did so by committing to what he called “the aggregation of marginal gains,” or a small improvement in a lot of areas. In his words: “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”
For instance, it’s well-known that at the very beginning of the meal, and at the very end, time seems to slow down. In those moments, the guest has a heightened sensitivity to any delay—we can all relate to feeling like we’ve been waiting hours for that first glass of water or for the check. So it’s crucial to get something—anything—in front of the guest as soon as you can.
After the host brought you to the table, the captain would hand you menus and ask about your water preference. Moments later, and without any visible communication—often before the captain had even left the table—your server would be at the table, pouring your preferred water choice. It wasn’t magic; the captain had discreetly signaled your preference to one of their colleagues using a hand gesture (wiggled fingers for bubbles, a straight chop for still, and a twist of the fist for ice) behind their back.
“People can feel perfection.” Maybe people don’t notice every single individual detail, but in aggregate, they’re powerful. In any great business, most of the details you closely attend to are ones that only a tiny, tiny percentage of people will notice. But if I could institute a system that demanded that the entire team think carefully about even the most rudimentary of tasks, I was creating a world in which intention was the standard, and our guests could feel it.
What he was doing was telling the guest he was wrong: “You, sir, don’t know a true medium-rare when you see it.” Of course the guest felt shamed and rebuked; he had been, even if that was never the intention. So here we were again, negotiating the delicate balance between excellence and hospitality. If you’ve corrected a guest because you don’t want them to think you’ve made a mistake, you’ve made a much bigger mistake. If hospitality is about creating genuine connection, and if that connection happens only once the guest has let their guard down, shaming them makes it highly unlikely you’ll ever be able to get that connection back again.
We needed to make sure we were serving our guests, not our egos; as Danny Meyer says, “Being right is irrelevant.” So instead of explaining what a true medium-rare looks like, we needed to say, “Absolutely, sir, I’m sorry,” before getting the guest a steak cooked exactly the way he wanted it cooked. It was then that a new mantra at EMP was born: “Their perception is our reality.” Which means: it doesn’t matter whether the steak is rare or medium rare. If the guest’s perception is that it’s undercooked, the only acceptable response is, “Let me fix it.” And true hospitality means going one step further and doing everything you can to make sure the situation doesn’t repeat itself—in this case, making an internal guest note in our reservations system that this person “orders steak medium rare, but prefers it cooked medium.”
It’s important for me to make clear that “Their perception is our reality” did not apply in scenarios where a guest was being abusive or disrespectful. The customer isn’t always right, and it’s unhealthy for everyone if you don’t have clear and enforced boundaries for yourself and your staff as to what is unacceptable behavior.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
I reminded myself: If adding another element to the experience means you’re going to do everything a little less well, walk it back. Do less, and do it well.
The Michelin Guide was created at the beginning of the twentieth century as an ingenious marketing ploy. The tire-selling brothers who originated it figured that encouraging people to drive around France to try different restaurants would increase tire sales, so they threw together a free guide of the restaurants in France. Their star system reflected whether a restaurant was worth traveling for. One star meant a very good restaurant in its category, worth a stop. Two meant excellent cooking, deserving of a detour, while three stood for exceptional cuisine, important enough to merit a special journey.
Eleven Madison Park actually owned Shake Shack at that point in time. Shake Shack had started in 2004. It was originally a hot dog cart, part of an art installation in Madison Square Park.
“Perspective has an expiration date, no matter how hard you try to hold on to it.” Unfortunately, when you lose the viewpoint of the people you’re responsible for managing, you also tend to lose your empathy for them. We’d all be better leaders if we could tap back into what it felt like to be led.
(This is why sugary cereals are always stocked on the lower shelves at the supermarket—it puts them at eye level for kids.)
Bruni had recognized that we were bringing a more casual approach to fine dining—all the excellence, with less of that uncomfortable starch. Our informality had helped us earn that fourth star.
But the engine behind that bold statement was another quote, this one by Jay-Z: “I believe you can speak things into existence.” I know this for sure: if you don’t have the courage to state a goal out loud, you’ll never achieve it.
We listed our dishes only by their principal ingredient; on a given night, say, your choice of entrée might be between beef, duck, lobster, or cauliflower. You controlled which of those you ordered but got to enjoy the surprise of how the ingredient was prepared and served when it was delivered.
As I was clearing this particular table, I overheard the four guests crowing about the culinary adventures they’d had in New York: “We’ve been everywhere! Daniel, Per Se, Momofuku, now Eleven Madison Park. The only thing we didn’t eat was a street hot dog.” If you’d been in the dining room that day, you’d have seen an animated bulb appear over my head, like in a cartoon. I dropped the dirty dishes off in the kitchen and ran out to buy a hot dog from Abraham, who manned the Sabrett’s cart on our corner.
A couple came in, splurging on dinner to console themselves after their vacation flight was canceled. We turned the private dining room into a private beach, complete with beach chairs, sand on the ground, and a kiddie pool filled with water they could stick their toes into, and they drowned their disappointment in tropical daiquiris decorated with little umbrellas.
Luxury means just giving more; hospitality means being more thoughtful.
Gifts, to me, are deeply meaningful, which is why I get so mad when a business gives me a cheap tote with a branded USB drive. Try harder! Do better! Gifts are a way to tell people you saw, heard, and recognized them—that you cared enough to listen, and to do something with what you heard. A gift transforms an interaction, taking it from transactional to relational; there is no better way than a gift to demonstrate that someone is more than a customer or a line item on a spreadsheet. And the right one can help you to extend your hospitality all the way into someone’s life.
Nobody knows what they’re doing before they do it. When you’re trying to level up, it’s easy to psych yourself out by focusing on everything you don’t know. But you’ve got to have faith in your ability to figure it out. A black diamond is scary if you usually ski blues. But you’ll never advance if you always turn around to find an easier trail; eventually, you have to put your poles in the snow and push. Growth happens outside of your comfort zone. Whether on your ass or on your skis, don’t worry—you will get down the hill, and you’ll learn a lot along the way. (This is also why promoting people before they are ready works so well.)
In a particularly dramatic turn of events, in that same week, Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook came out, and we became the first restaurant in history to be elevated from one to three Michelin stars in a single year.
It was the age of Noma, and every one of the restaurants at the top of the list was serving an experience that was so deeply specific to where they were, the meal wouldn’t make sense anywhere else. This felt especially important in an increasingly globalized and homogenous world where you could travel sixteen hours on a plane, then walk down a luxury row virtually identical to the one in the city you’d left behind.
Too many people approach creative brainstorming by taking what’s practical into consideration way too early in the process. Working with Jonathan and Dan reinforced what I’d always believed: Start with what you want to achieve, instead of limiting yourself to what’s realistic or sustainable. Or, as I like to say, don’t ruin a story with the facts. Eventually, you’ll reverse engineer your great idea and figure out what’s possible and cost-effective and all the other boring grown-up stuff. But you should start with what you want to achieve. (When
After seven years of hard work, creativity, a maniacal attention to detail, and a truly unreasonable dedication to hospitality, Eleven Madison Park was named the best restaurant in the world.