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
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Shake Shack started off as a summer hot dog cart in Madison Square Park. It was not meant to be a company - it was completely accidental. It started off as an expression of community building.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I've been in love with Washington ever since renting my very first apartment there many years ago while working as a Senate intern.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Diners are upset that restaurants aren't honoring reservations, and a lot of restaurants help bring this on by overbooking.
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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.
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Use your time well. Everyone gets time equally. It doesn't matter how much money you make.