Rather daring, don’t you think, for a restaurateur to write a book titled Setting The Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business? Especially since no matter a restaurateur’s personal ideals and goals, he or she depends on chefs and servers to communicate these ideals to the guests. Not only must the restaurateur walk the talk, the staff must willingly do so as well.
Danny Meyer has been in business over 20 years, growing his original Union Square Café into a brand (Union Square Hospitality Group) now including the celebrated Eleven Madison Park, The Modern, Gramercy Park, and many others. In his new book, Meyer attempts to chronicle his not-quite rags to riches story of how he succeeded in the restaurant business by listening to people and putting the customer first.
Skeptical by nature and well-versed in the world of PR, I’d expected to read the typical froth about how the little things matter. And in print articles and interviews related to the book, I’ve read shaggy dog stories about how Meyer’s service-obsessed waiters jumped cabs to airports to return a forgotten purse to a diner, or scrambled to retrieve a chilling bottle of signature champagne from a patron’s refrigerator when he (isn’t it almost always a ‘he?’) forgot to bring it to the restaurant for an anniversary dinner.
Leery of tales of servers so heroic each seemed equipped with a knight’s armor and charging white horse, I wondered why Meyer would resort to such extremes when in the real world I’ve always found his service staff (at the Modern, Union Square, Gramercy Park, and Eleven Madison Park) always sincerely friendly, well-trained, and extraordinarily well-versed in wine. And requests for sauces on the side and other When Harry Met Sally-style deviations have always been delivered exactly as ordered.
Then, without design, Meyer’s message was put to the test when a friend entertaining important business clients and myself at the Modern (the pricey dining room, not the bar room) discovered after the first of many already ordered courses that his parties’ theater tickets for the sold-out hit musical Jersey Boys was for 7:00 PM, not 8:00 PM.
.jpg?t=20120209092158)
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!