Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business » (Reprint)

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group. His restaurants and their chefs have earned an unprecedented twenty-one James Beard Awards, and perennially rank among New York City's favorite restaurants in the Zagat survey. He lives in New York City.

In October 1985, at age twenty-seven, Danny Meyer, with a good idea and scant experience, opened what would become one of New York City's most revered restaurants Union Square Cafe. Little more than twenty years later, Danny is the CEO of one of the world's most dynamic restaurant organizations, which includes eleven unique dining establishments, each at the top of its game. How has he done it? How has he consistently beaten the odds and set the competitive bar in one of the toughest trades around?

In this landmark book, Danny shares the lessons he's learned while developing the winning recipe for doing the business he calls "enlightened hospitality." This innovative philosophy emphasizes putting the power of hospitality to work in a new and counterintuitive way: The first and most important application of hospitality is to the people who work for you, and then, in descending order of priority, to the guests, the community, the suppliers, and the investors. This way of prioritizing stands the more traditional business models on their heads, but Danny considers it the foundation of every success that he and his restaurants have achieved.

Some of Danny's other insights:

• Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. These two simple concepts for and to express it all.
• Context, context, context, trumps the outdated location, location, location.
• Shared ownership develops when guests talk about a restaurant as if it's theirs. That sense of affiliation builds trust and invariably leads to repeat business.
• Err on the side of generosity: You get more by first giving more.
• Wherever your center lies, know it, name it, believe in it. When you cede your core values to someone else, it's time to quit.

Full of behind-the-scenes history on the creation of Danny's most famous restaurants and the anecdotes, advice, and lessons he has accumulated on his long and ecstatic journey to the top of the American restaurant scene, Setting the Table is a treasure trove of innovative insights that are applicable to any business or organization.

The New York Times - Sara Dickerman

Meyer is more persuasive and interesting, both as a storyteller and as a business adviser, when he sticks to concrete examples from his working life instead of spinning them into catchphrases that might work in a PowerPoint presentation. He has built his business not on food or service alone, but on the value of a colorful story especially the ones that his clients tell to his future clients: the wallet lost in a cab and tracked down by Tabla s manager; the personal call from Meyer before a big anniversary dinner; a superb frozen custard on a sunny day in Madison Square Park.

Introduction     1
The First Course     5
In Business     31
The Restaurant Takes Root     55
Turning Over the Rocks     77
Who Ever Wrote the Rule...?     97
No Turning Back     111
The 51 Percent Solution     139
Broadcasting the Message, Tuning in the Feedback     161
Constant, Gentle Pressure     187
The Road to Success Is Paved with Mistakes Well Handled     219
The Virtuous Cycle of Enlightened Hospitality     237
Context, Context, Context     271
The Art of Hospitality     291
Acknowledgments     317