Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Danny Meyer - Page 2

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.

Restaurants with small courses that give the customer choices, and that don't obligate them to spend a fortune, are going to do very well.

I just think the best way for me to be greedy is long-term greedy.

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.

If you develop a dialogue with me and take an interest in me, I'll want to give you the business. It's human nature.

During one of his uncannily well-timed impromptu visits to my restaurant, Union Square Cafe, Pat Cetta taught me how to manage people. Pat was the owner of a storied New York City steakhouse called Sparks, and by that time, he was an old pro at running a fine restaurant.

I'm a big believer that you can try to change the world based on philosophy, doctrine, and belief. But I think the thing that really drives the world is hedonism, the pleasure factor.

I run in London, in San Francisco - any city that's got a waterfront or park.

You wouldn't have the same art on the walls at every restaurant or the same waiter uniforms. Neither should you have the same service style at every restaurant.

I opened Union Square Cafe when I was just 27 years old, and my first hope was simply that it would stay in business. My higher hope was that in its lifetime, it might grow to play an essential role in the lives of its stakeholders.

Wearing a baseball cap or sleeveless shirt in a white-tablecloth restaurant is rude and makes other diners upset, just like someone on a cellphone.

Restaurants and chefs have become followed by such a broad swath of the public, in a way that used to be reserved for sports stars, movie stars, and theater actors. Restaurants are in the firmament of today's common culture.

I don't think there's going to be sustainable demand for restaurants that force you to spend hours there.

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.

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.

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.

I learned that you shouldn't take your most esoteric concept and fit it into the largest space with the highest fixed costs. It puts too much pressure on the restaurant to hit grand slams every day when there just aren't enough people who want to watch that sport.

Today, it's almost the outlier if people are not photographing what they ate and then sharing that in real time.

I think that more and more and more really talented restauranteurs and chefs from the fine dining world are going to try their hand at fine casual. They're going to say, 'Why not us?'

London has become one of the great world destinations for someone who likes food.

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.

I never get sick on airplanes, which is incredible. You're basically in a flying petri dish.

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.

A delicious meal cooked by a colleague for many others nourishes not only the body but also the soul.

When chefs like Wolfgang Puck became household names, that became a compelling reason for an intelligent young person to go into the cooking profession. There have been no waiters who have turned into household names. The service and hospitality aspects have clearly lagged behind the kitchen.

One of the things that may get lost among all the hubbub when a company is 'going public' is that the business can now be owned, in part, by its greatest fans.

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.

One of my great teachers was the late Jean-Claude Vrinat of Taillevent in Paris.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The part of capitalism that doesn't work for me is when capitalists make decisions in the way that Adam Smith suggested, which is that as long as you do everything in the interest of the investor, you're going to actually make the best decisions for all other stakeholders. I don't happen to agree with that.

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.

Restaurants are like kids. You hope you understand their innate gifts, and then you let them realize their aspirations.

I think that any business that thinks that the transaction is 'you give me money and I give you food, next, you give me money and I give you food, next,' without understanding that people deeply want to feel restored is in danger.

It is sad that the more 'successful' a neighborhood becomes, the more it gradually takes on a recognizable, common look, as the same banks, drugstore chains and national brands move in.

Long before Starbucks popularized the phrase 'the third place' - somewhere to interact outside of work and home - it was neighborhood restaurants that helped to define places like Union Square.

I adore going to a very, very fancy restaurant - as long as the spirit is genuine, like it's their pleasure to welcome you.