Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer
Daniel "Danny" Meyeris a New York City restaurateur and the Chief Executive Officer of the Union Square Hospitality Group...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth14 March 1958
CountryUnited States of America
cafe deeply five grow history location next shake square took union
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.
beneath constantly fascinated favorite feet five learning looking next sidewalk street walked
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.
business demanding five food fried italian less standards
The cooking standards for Italian food are less demanding than for French. All you need are some fried mozzarella and five pastas, and you're in business.
appeared bar cover five kinda magazine people sniff tavern york
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.
love senate since washington
I've been in love with Washington ever since renting my very first apartment there many years ago while working as a Senate intern.
best casting earlier executive leading needed pick producer
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.
ability create delicious determine experience food good people perceive succeed understanding value york
Essentially what's going to determine how you succeed in New York is how people feel about the space, how delicious the food is, how they perceive the value and, most important of all, how they feel treated. My understanding is Stephen Starr is exceptionally good at all of this and his ability to create a transporting experience.
food people refuse
People who have come to appreciate well-sourced and well-cooked food refuse to pay too much for food that they wouldn't want to pay anything for.
adding bringing chefs coming early gimmicks plate pleasure
Sometimes, early in their careers, chefs make the mistake of adding one too many things to a plate to get attention. If a chef is just coming up with wiz-bang gimmicks on their plate, that has nothing to do with bringing real pleasure to people.
created false felt guests member relationship staff system
At that point, I was impassioned about abolishing the tipping system because I felt it created a false servant-master relationship between servers and guests at the restaurant, ... would just make the staff member feel really horrible, as if they had done something wrong.
honoring
Diners are upset that restaurants aren't honoring reservations, and a lot of restaurants help bring this on by overbooking.
brilliant buy changing food foods produced
Whole Foods has been brilliant at changing the way food is produced because they just won't buy it if it doesn't meet their standards.
gets money time
Use your time well. Everyone gets time equally. It doesn't matter how much money you make.
existing flavors
What you can do is present existing flavors in a fresh way, in a fresh context.