Danny Meyer Quotes
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Comfort food is absolutely moving upscale.
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Hospitality exists when you believe that the other person is on your side.
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Short of hiring a new staff, consider giving subpar workers a chance to improve. Tell them why they're not measuring up and give them a set amount of time to make specific improvements.
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I couldn't sit in a chair in an office all day.
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In one respect, it's easier to open a restaurant in New York because you get more media attention than anywhere else. Almost everyone will try a new place once, irrespective of the reviews, because it's a spectator sport.
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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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Human nature doesn't change. When enough people are comfortable enough financially, there is going to be human nature that wants to spend more money on better quality and, to some degree, status symbols as well.
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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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Use your time well. Everyone gets time equally. It doesn't matter how much money you make.
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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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There are three things that people pick up on the instant they walk into your home on Thanksgiving. They will be able to feel the human energy. They'll smell the food. And they will see, instantly, the table.
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A restaurant is a compendium of choices that the owner has made. If you look around a restaurant, everything represents a choice: the kind of salt shaker that's on the table, the art on the walls, the uniforms on the waiters.
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It's the job of any business owner to be clear about the company's nonnegotiable core values. They're the riverbanks that help guide us as we refine and improve on performance and excellence. A lack of riverbanks creates estuaries and cloudy waters that are confusing to navigate. I want a crystal-clear, swiftly flowing stream.
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In an age when so many groups are rolling out restaurants faster than your local baker makes donuts, my goal is that each restaurant feels hand-crafted. That they have their own soul.
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One great worker equals three not-so-great workers, so it's worth paying terrific people not just for today but to find people that we think have upward mobility to become tomorrow's leaders.
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At my restaurants, we have training drills before every meal. We talk about what we did yesterday that was great and what we can improve today.
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Ninety-five percent of all brussels sprouts come from California.
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Today, it's almost the outlier if people are not photographing what they ate and then sharing that in real time.
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I just think the best way for me to be greedy is long-term greedy.
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Life is a series of waves to be embraced and overcome.
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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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There are a zillion variables to a hamburger. What part of the animal went into it. What coarseness. What temperature.
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I don't get to cook in my own restaurant.
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Union Square Cafe is all soul, not brain.