Leadership Book Club: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, Part One

In this first part of a two-part series, Mike and Kristen dive into Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. While it might not seem like a traditional leadership book at first glance, it's packed with lessons for anyone serving customers or managing teams. Mike brings a unique perspective to this discussion, having spent 17 years in the restaurant industry before transitioning to senior living. He shares personal insights about the intense world of restaurants, where excellence isn't just encouraged—it's demanded every single day. The conversation weaves through Guidara's journey from young food runner to co-owner of one of the world's most celebrated restaurants, revealing how exceptional service can transform not just businesses, but the lives of everyone they touch.

Highlights:

• Service vs. hospitality: service is the technical side while hospitality is about making people feel cared for
• "Enlightened Hospitality" prioritizes employees over guests and investors
• "Grace notes" are small unexpected gestures that elevate the hospitality experience
• Language creates culture through phrases like "constant gentle pressure" and "be the swan"
• The "Rule of 95/5": manage 95% of budget responsibly to allow 5% for "foolish spending" that enhances experiences
• Will's 30-minute daily meetings transformed restaurant culture by creating consistency and celebrating wins
• Leaders should give more praise than criticism and address issues immediately
• Different approaches are needed for employees who are trying versus those who aren't
• Hospitality applies beyond restaurants—three-quarters of GDP comes from service industries

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi (film)
• The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson 
• The Bear (TV show)

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Transcript

Kristen: Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.


Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.


Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

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Kristen: Hello and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen 

Mike: And I'm Mike.

Kristen: And today we have an LBC episode


and we are talking about Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. I think that's right.

Mike: Yes. I believe that's how you pronounce his name. Unreasonable Hospitality: the Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect.

This is, it, at first blush, it might not be, a exactly. A leadership book, but it's absolutely a leadership book. It's,

Kristen: It is, yeah.

Mike: Will has a lot of management and leadership experience and as it pertains to everyone in your business. We're all serving some customers, we're all serving someone.

So, the lessons in here are absolutely applicable to whatever you're doing, unless you're just mining Bitcoin I don't know, which is great for you. Congratulations on your

Kristen: I mean,

Mike: fabulous wealth at this point. But,you know, the rest of us are working for somebody, and Will, has a great mindset for it.

So, uh, Will Guidara born 1979 is an American restaurateur based in New York City, along with Chef Daniel Humm, g co-owned the Make It Nice Hospitality Group established in 2011, which owns and operates Eleven Madison Park, Nomad, New York Nomad, Los Angeles Nomad Las Vegas. 

Kristen: Just all the Nomad properties.

Mike: A native of Sleepy Hollow New York Guidara graduated from Cornell Graduat. 

We might have a

Cat, we might have a cat visitor. It's been a while. Yeah. Ever since we changed the name to Love and Leadership and Cats, we have not had cat visitors because cats, do cat things. But now we, it looks like she's trying to get 

Kristen: here.

Attracted some interest.

Okay. We'll see if she visits. So 

Mike: Mr. Guidara began his dining room career at Wolfgang Puck's spago in Beverly Hills, where he got his butt kicked on the floor as a food runner.

Will then went on to various roles in Danny Meyer's, Union Square Hospitality Group, including, Tabla Cafe two, and the restaurants at the Museum of Modern Art.

Danny Meyer's restaurant group is super, super famous. If you're from New York or Earth, you probably have heard of

Kristen: him.

Mike: He's the genius behind Shake Shack.

Kristen: Yeah. Which I did not know until reading this

Mike: Along with will and Will wanted to become the GM of Shake Shack.

That was his dream. And instead Danny got him to take the job at Eleven Madison Park and the rest is history. Will is married to the amazing pastry chef Christina Tosi, who, made the best cookie I am sure I will ever have in my life. I was there, working just down the street when they opened Milk Bar, in the late two thousands.

David Chang, when he took over New York with Momofuku, and the cookie was so good. I know it had corn flakes in it. It was so good that I thought it might not be vegetarian. And I, I was like, there has to be like beef tallow in this or something. And I went back to check the, we got a box of them for the restaurant.

I was working at Angelica Kitchen and we brought it back. The waiters we'll send the manager out during the shift with our tips to get like snacks. 

And we went to Momofuku Milk Bar one day and got a whole like two dozen cookies and, still the best cookie I've ever had. Wow. Miss Tossi has an amazing episode on Netflix Chef's Table. She is a genius. 

And I'm not surprised the two of them got married. I will say this book and this, episode's particularly close to my heart. I worked in restaurants for 17 years and serving others in one form or another is clearly my life's work. You know.I don't know.

it's a very powerful thing to help others care for others, serve others, a student of Confucius asked him about how to serve heaven and Anglo kind of admonished him and told him to go back and learn how to serve people first. So,A couple caveats. I have not had the chance yet to eat at Eleven Madison Park.

I was poor while I lived in New York, and you know, they weren't super on my radar at the time. They got famous as I was leaving. and I can't personally speak to the awesomeness of the cuisine. I do have a deep respect for Daniel Humm. Will and Daniel at some point broke up. They had a falling out.

They don't talk about it much. it's a very intense life. And Daniel Swiss traditional Swiss chef with a very, probably very high strung and angry. If any of you seen The Bear, that chef, the mean one might in some way at least be based off Daniel. But it, he is a unparalleled genius who reinvents himself constantly and in that spirit of constant reinvention and growth, after Will had left Eleven Madison Park, during Covid, I.

During the pandemic, Daniel had some sort of revelation and decided he needed to reinvent his relationship with food. And, I mean, they had a very hard time like the, especially like the high end restaurants in the beginning. Nobody was going to high-end restaurants anymore and doing delivery like your Chinese takeout is not the same.

You're trying to, serve a thousand dollar meals. So he also had a epiphany and realized we had to change our connection to food. And he turned Eleven Madison Park completely plant-based, which is insane.

Kristen: Which is

Which is crazy. It's crazy because, For a three Michelin

Mike: Michelin starred restaurant, the most, the San Pellegrino's number one restaurant in the world.

He did this to thejeers by public and critics and other people who, who just said, you're crazy. You're gonna lose your stars. 

And in fact he did not lose his stars. He's been reviewed several more times by the Michelin guide and kept his stars. So, 

you can make plant-based food as like high artChinese cuisine has been, has had traditions of vegetarians for 4,000 years in India, maybe even longer. Like we know what we're doing. Yeah. And

Kristen: Also just a cool story of doing something that feels deeply right to you when everybody else is telling you it's not gonna work, and proving them wrong.

I always love 

Mike: And this whole book is kind of an exploration of both of them doing something different andand doing it their way. Sometimes they're insane, for sure. Mm-hmm.But they have such a high standard and a drive to win that it works.

I'll also say the book, this book mostly recounts, MPS Eleven Madison Park for EMP, quest for Michelin Stars and other lofty awards. This path may be laudable, but it also has human complications. Many restaurateurs work, myself included, work hundred plus hour weeks. And I'm not exaggerating, 16 hour days, seven days a week, you go home, you sleep for five hours, you stumble back to, it's 

Kristen: There are no holidays.

Mike: There are no holidays. There are no holidays. There is now,there's. Probably mandated health insurance. But there wasn't then. And so do I, do, I condone this pursuit of fame and glory at the expense of the health and families. I've walked this path many times. It definitely didn't work for me.

I do respect the tireless pursuit of excellence and the people that choose to go this route, but Will, does not address,aggressively some of the darker underbelly of restaurant life that you can probably read in Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain's work. that's very 

Kristen: That's like the counterpart

Mike: I will also say very seriously though, I don't believe food is a competition. I think the fetishization and this like Food Network, culture that we have, we're food is to feed and nourish people and that's its main thing and.I, have respect these high achieving people. But I don't wanna say we have starving people in there.

There's enough food on earth for everyone to eat very well. And we haven't seemed to figure out how. And that's And restaurants have, a big part in the waste of food. There's a lot of waste. And in fine dining there's a tremendous amount of waste. 

Kristen: I believe it. 

Mike: You cut the little triangle that you want out of the pineapple, slice.

And because you can only get two perfect triangles out of it, you throw the rest.. Right. Hopefully, you know, if you're smart, like Eleven Madison Park donated to, food pantries and City Harvest and but there's a lot of waste. Okay.I'll also say we talk about Michelin stars a lot.

If you don't know the history of Michelin, it is Michelin Tires. And it was a guide that came out in France, I think, in the early 1900s from Michelin Tires who were trying to promote their tires and they wanted to encourage people to take road trips. So they started rating restaurants and their standards were, one star was, worth a stop.

Two stars was worth a detour, and three stars was worth a special trip to go do that. And I think that holds today. Three stars is extraordinarily hard to achieve and to maintain it over time is very, very hard. Yeah.

I'm gonna digress a lot. Get ready. Strap in

Kristen: It's very personal

Mike: it's very personal. It's very personal.

Kristen: Yeah. And Mike had read this book before, and we bumped it up on our podcast list 'cause he's currently doing it with his team. 

Mike: Yeah,

it's a one stop shop of just going the extra mile for people and taking service to the next level.I'm reminded of, there's a good, I don't know if it's on Netflix, but there is a great movie called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Another like sushi chef or another chef with just the highest craziest standards.His sushi restaurant was in a subway, like down the stairs of a subway in Tokyo, and it's like 12 seats. 

So they gave this little, I think he was like 85 when they gave him the award. And they gave him three Michelin stars and some people it was when Michelin first went to Tokyo and people were like very surprised. The idea of the traditional French restaurants were very, fancy overblown and and here you're giving 3 stars to this, unassuming Japanese man that has a restaurant in a subway 

Kristen: station.

Hmm. 

Mike: And they asked him, they asked Michelin, 

why did you give, him three stars? And they said, well, we couldn't give him four. Hmm.

SoIt's cool. And, you know, this book is a love letter to high achievement the pursuit ever increasing excellence will is a unabashed perfectionist, which is not healthy.

But you know, I personally, respect people that, that dedicate this much passion and their work. And food especially.

Kristen: Yeah. And I will say, this was my first read of this book. I do not come from like a restaurant or hospitality background, but I really, really enjoyed it. It's a very narrative heavy book and if you've listened to past LBC episodes your favorite, but it's, like heavy narrative books.

Not all of them, but like in the business book world are often pretty hit or miss for me. But I really, I felt this kind of read like a novel in a lot of ways. 

Mike: Yeah. It's a story. It's Will's story. Yeah,

Kristen: Yeah, it was very, it was a very enjoyable read for me.

Mike: So,Will at some point makes friends with Simon Sinek, and I think Simon's his coach.

So Simon does the introduction. so he says, this is not a, just a book about a talented entrepreneur. It's an exploration of how to treat people and how to listen, how to be curious, and how to love the feeling of others feeling welcomed. Hospitality is making people feel like they belong.Will thinks about hospitality as an act of service, how his service makes people feel they should be cared for and loved.

It's inspiring to get a team to, work together. and create a sense of belonging, and we should be unreasonable in our expectations of this hospitality. And I also go back and we're gonna flush this out over the book. It's not about formality. It's not about fancy. It's not about,the old school,stiff kind of, it's the sincerity of the heart.

And I go back to our honeymoon at, the Maldives, a lot of dropped balls, but no one cared because everyone was so kind and gracious and welcoming just, yeah. That's what counted. Okay.Let's jump in. Chapter One: Welcome to the Hospitality Economy.So Will talks about, the human desire for care.

And here we find Will's foundation and the business is shaped by his family. His father is a restaurateur and his mother is a flight attendant.He, finds, through this, the desire to be taken care of never goes away. We don't leave humans behind, and we're here to make people feel good and happy.

he gets that kind of service mindset from His mom actually starts to experience some terrible health issues. She becomes a quadraplegic .

He compares service versus hospitality. Service is very black and white. Hospitality is the myriad of colors. Service is like the technical side of things. You're doing your job with confidence, but hospitality is that warmth and making people feel cared about making them feel great about the job you're doing for them.

That's what we really experienced in the Maldives, you know. I had better cappuccinos in New York than I did, but they, the way they lovingly prepared them made up 

Kristen: Yeah. It's like hospitality is really about how you make people feel. 

Mike: Yeah. So he explores creating a culture of hospitality.

Kristen: Yeah. And I thought it was also he says this in several points, that hospitality is not just for the hospitality industry, which we think of as like hotels and, travel and restaurants probably.

But he points out, interestingly, like three quarters of our GDP comes from service based industries. 

Mike: Yep.

Yep.

Kristen: So this is important for everyone 

Mike: He talks about, focusing intentionally and passionately on wholehearted graciousness and connection. This is his, raison d'etre and his,core of hospitality. and he addresses this through a couple key questions.

How do we make the people who work for us and the people we care for feel seen and valued? How do we give them a sense of belonging? How do we make them feel part of something bigger than themselves? And how do we make them feel welcomed? And I think what's interesting and unique about this is that he's working with these ideas for his team members and not just his customers.

I think Danny Meyer, I dunno if he pioneered it, but he was, his whole concept is very big on, on you take care of the team first. We'll go further into that. So hospitality is a core value. Hospitality can be taught. The hospitality experience begins the moment we connect with someone and ends only when they decide it does.

And this point is very salient. Hospitality and service is a, it's a selfish pleasure. It does feel great to make others feel good. 

Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: And those of us that have made this in some way, our life's work. We get a lot of joy out of the simple touches that we can provide to people and the light in their eyes when we do something unexpected.

I've got a little Nespresso machine in my office, and when people come up and I'll be like, can I make you a cappuccino? And they're just, they're used to showing up and just getting some crappy coffee.

Kristen: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Mm-hmm.if that, and it's, and they're like, they're just taken aback by it.

And I, I absolutely enjoy it. I don't care if it's a line level team member or if it's the president of the board. I will make you a cappuccino while you, when you come to my office. It's fun for me. Right.So he talks about, turning the world of service and hospitality from black and white to, color. Chapter Two, Making Magic in a World That Could Use More Of It.

And this is probably misattributed, but it Maya Angelou, people may forget what you did or said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Kristen: Yeah. Just kind of the core of marketing and advertising as well. So it's like an interesting crossover. 

Mike: Well, you know, it it, the feeling like that last, like the body keeps score.

it keeps positive score as well as I think generally people read that book in terms of resolving trauma. But those positive feelings probably last as well. They're very powerful. As, his first experience, really at something special, he goes with his father to the Four Seasons.

They have an amazing experience. He's just blown away by the magic of it all, the seamlessness of the service, the extravagance of the food. 

Kristen: And this was specifically, I think he was around 12, if I remember right. Yeah. This was after his mother had died. 

Mike: Did she die already? Yeah.

Kristen: It's a very powerful story. And talked about just how meaningful it was and how like he saw the grief and pain in dad's face be replaced.

Yeah. With just the beauty of the experience.

Mike: So he, it must've been in the first chapter, he talked about the idea of being made, of feeling welcomed. His mother eventually lost the ability to speak, but she would wait in her caregiver would wheel her to the front of the house and she would wait for him to come home from school, in the window and welcome to welcome him home.

And that was his experience. Even though she was suffering, she would, she made him feel very welcomed every time he came home from school. And that became like, very powerful imprint on him. What it feels like to be, to be wanted and welcomed. 

Kristen: I might have mixed up the story. The, the experience with his dad may not actually be the Four Seasons. I think I mixed these up. But it was 

Mike: Yeah. The book maybe took me a minute to like, kind of organize, but the first couple of chapters are Will, uh, forming his, life's work. Yeah. And these very powerful moments. His mother's illness, his father still going to work 12 hours a day in his restaurantstarting Will off on this, on this path, which he takes to very quickly.

Yeah. Anyway, Chapter Three, The Extraordinary Power of Intention. I. So his father is the president of a restaurant association. He introduced him to the business at a young age. His father balanced parenting, caring for his quadriplegic wife, and working 15 hour days. This required extreme discipline and organization something that Will picked up, in, this business.

Intentionality is not just a business philosophy, it's a requirement, to do something thoughtfully with clear purpose and an eye on the results. That's, we now see chefs like with their incredible precision, the way they put things on the plate, the swish, the swirl, the colors, Will, takes this into the dining room and then also into financial management, which is something I really love about his approach.

he plays the P&L like it's a cello, and identify with that.He has a intentionality for every single thing that he does in the restaurant all day long. 


Kristen: Yeah. It's like every decision, no matter how mundane matters.

Mike: Absolutely.He gets accepted into the Cornell Hotel Program.

His father's skeptical having met graduates who are, think they're ready to be the CEO immediately. He differs by Will, differs by having actual job experience. And I echo this, when I was in the business, like often the last person we would wanna hire is somebody with a culinary degree.

They have very little, often very little real world experience. And they think they know, of course they think they know everything and they have no idea what the brutality of restaurant life is. And they show up and they want to put things on the menu themselves and, put pine nuts on everything. And it's like, dude, the dishes are up to the ceiling.

I need you to go back there and like help the dishwasher for the next 14 hours. Mm-hmm. Not what they're looking, not the experience they thought they were gonna be getting. So his father's skeptical of that.But, Will, he trusts his instincts. He goes ahead at some point. He encounters Danny Meyer's restaurant group and he experiences Eleven Madison Park when it's a brasserie, not in its current form.

Meyer brings a more relaxed, kind of a Midwestern hospitality to fine dining. Very refined, very focused. He calls his business, his model, Enlightened Hospitality, and he prioritizes employees over guests and investors. He hires great people, treats them well, and invests in their growth. Will is initially unsure if fine dining really suits him, but he does learn,and he figures it's easier to learn this high-end style and go back to burgers and fries than it is the reverse.

I do wanna say too, you know,I gave this book to an extended member of my leadership team. She absolutely loves it. And she's gushing over it. And I don't think she's ever really worked in restaurants. I could be wrong, and I wanted to put some caveats on it too. You know, Dan, Danny Meyer probably has a hundred million dollars.

And until the government made him, I seriously doubt his cooks had health insurance. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: So I love the guy, I love his philosophy. But,we're still existing in a capitalist society and restaurants are certainly have a history of exploitation and unreasonable expectations for guests. The amount I remember being in New York at Angelica Kitchen and we're selling a cup of organic butternut squash, vegan soup for 3 25.

And there's no way, that's what it really costs. Somebody grew that, harvested it, packaged it, shipped it, delivered it, unpacked it, stored it. Took it out of the fridge, washed it, peeled it, cut it,removed the seeds, and then cooked it and then prepared it for service. And then me, some dumb ass waiter, put it in a cup and took it out to you.

That's not 3 25, that's 30 bucks at least. So there's a, there's a, but the way that it's only $3 is our cooks didn't have health insurance. So there's, there's a lot of inequities. I love all these guys, but I do want to, address the system issues,you know, anyway. Before we talk about Enlightened Hospitality, Mr.

Meyer, stuff. But, Chapter Four, Lessons in Enlightened Hospitality. Will works as a manager at Tabla, an Indian restaurant, breaking boundaries in the Us. He learns the power of being an underdog. They wear that as a badge of honor. He gains hands on experience in the kitchen.

He develops respect for its intensity and precision.He starts to really pick out and pick up some leadership ideas. He notices people, managers who have great presence. When they, a great leader enters the room. People straighten up, but they also smile. And somebody, told me that, he's like, you can tell a leader, there are leaders that when they show up, everybody kind of relaxes.

And not because they're taking it easy, because they know they've got, a powerful person on their side. And then there's leaders who show up and in a room and everybody tenses up. Yeah. Which one are you? So,in enlightened hospitality going above and beyond becomes ingrained in the culture that's part of their culture, right?

And they have a fun, concept they call the grace note, which is small, unexpected gestures that elevate hospitality. If you're not a musician, a grace note is a small note that happens before the main note that can accentuate it,frame it within a melody, you know, but it's small and delicate and light and it's not the main note.

But, so he is a fun example. While he's there, he's, serving dinner to a couple who are celebrating their anniversary and at some point in the meal they exclaim to the waiter, oh no, we left the champagne in the freezer 'cause we put it in there so we could drink it later. It's gonna explode.

So the sommelier, instead of allowing that to happen, takes their keys,runs uptown to their apartment, takes the champagne outta the freezer.

Doesn't just do that. He leaves a handwritten note that the restaurant signs for them chocolates, caviar, and the card on the table. these people will never forget that 

Kristen: experience. Oh yeah. 

Mike: They will go back to that restaurant every year for the rest of their lives to celebrate their anniversary.

And that's like what the Ritz knows, they're, They're providing such a bespoke personalized service that you can't get, that you shouldn't be able to get that anywhere else. You, they want you to be a customer forever, And they, and people are right.So during this time at, Danny Meyers Group, he runs into, Randy Garutti, who's the future CEO of Shake Shack, who is apparently the most annoyingly positive person that has ever lived.

And every, he'll ask Randy how he's doing, and Randy would go, I'm just trying to make today the best day of my life. Okay, that's annoying. But you know, that contagious positive energy lifts up the team. as a recovering curmudgeonly New Yorker. I can confirm that.He develops an ownership mindset.

At some point tosses, the 22-year-old will, Will the keys to the restaurant and says, lock up when you leave and that's, he's trusting Will to, take care of his baby and Will, steps up to that.

And he, realizes that, something Jocko talks about, right? Early, if you see somebody with potential, put them in charge of something, Don't, don't do everything for them. So it builds trust, it builds ownership. And tossing the keys becomes a leadership philosophy. I practice this.

I also like to go home and not work an 80 hour week, but it, growing young leaders, growing people, if you're not doing that, you don't have a good organization. 100%, you don't. So I love this concept, that they talk about language creates culture. It's so powerful. It's so true.

So Danny Meyer coins phrases that EMPed values into the team's, DNA, Things like constant gentle pressure, right? You're always improving. Make it nice. Daniel Humm's, watch word catchphrase, like that's their business. It's make it nice. How do I do? Oh, make it nicer. Playing offense and defense.

They talk about improving good experiences versus fixing mistakes. Be the swan, which means guess see grace and the effort remains hidden. We have a saying in the business. No one needs to see how the sausage is made. 

Kristen: Yeah, that's the classic. I, I used an image and I did a talk recently of a duck where the above the surface looks super graceful and you don't see like the frantic paddling underneath though.

Yeah, it's a good

Mike: metaphor.

Yeah. Yeah. Be the swan. There's a Russian dance technique called the Beryozka Glide. And if you've ever seen, the Kingsmen. Rasputin enters doing the Beryozka Glide. And you wear a dress that's just long enough to hide your feet and you move your feet very fast. And if you do it right, you've controlled your upper body into the way that it truly looks like you're floating.

So that's there be the swan,

Other language that they use to create culture. Make the charitable assumption, assume the best before reacting, and focus on the why, not just the what. Creating, meaning in daily tasks. And again, as we go through all these books, what language is doing here is creating boundaries, the things we're focused on, the things we're not gonna allow and what are we always remembering. 

Kristen: Yeah. One of his subheadings is cult is short for culture, which it just, the way he talks about it kinda reminds me of the way that we talk about improv and the improv community where it's like you can have the positive aspects of a cult without the negative parts.

Mike: Yeah. Cult is culture.

It's threads of behavior and culture is boundaries. What are we focused on and what are we not focused on? So,yeah. It doesn't have to be negative culture. It will, you can have a very positive culture, They're creating a culture of service and caring and excellenceproactivity, and skill. And kindness, right? Make the charitable assumption. That's a culture of kindness.The service business can be hard, right? They, anyone that's been in the business will admit that, but you're either gonna become bitter and jaded about it, or you're just gonna try and assume the best in everybody for your team members too.

Okay. Chapter five, corporate Smart versus Restaurants, restaurant smart. This is where will really, his career starts to take off. Will, has the opportunity to become a, I don't remember what job, but a bigger job in Danny Meyers group. And his father actually advises him against it and tells him to go explore bigger companies.

Danny Meyers Group is, I don't know, five restaurants. They're very famous, successful restaurants, but they're still only five restaurants. And his father, encourages him to explore like a bigger company to learn how business is done. And Will realizes is that while Meyer is very restaurant smart corporate structures offer different advantages. I can confirm that, there are, I positives and negatives to a larger company, right? But a larger company, like the one I'm in now, they have very established practices and teams that do, robust accounting. They do P and L management, finance, review,so smaller restaurants, maybe nimble, there's no red tape.

More hospitality for sure. Large companies offer more essential tools, accounting, HR, but can sometimes sacrifice autonomy. Example, every kitchen manager ordering dish soap from different suppliers. Probably Danny's five restaurants all bought from different people, but I have a robust, slate of, corporate contracts that I get a discount on my rice from because we order for a hundred communities,sothere's pros and negatives, right?

EMPracing business acumen. He takes a role at Restaurant Associates as an assistant purchaser and controller. Talk about a mental, just like a functionary job, right? But he learns about costing inventory, accounts payable and receivable and P and L management, huge, business, tools to have in your pocket.

He develops a love for the financials, and he sees them as part of the mise en place for business success. And I heart this, i hard heartmise en place, is French, it means literally means stuff in place. And it is the term that a cook uses for his, his station setup. Where do I put the basil?

Where do I put the salt? Where do I put the lemon? Where do you know? Where do I put the butter? Where do I put the oil? And the physical way that you arrange all of this will determine often how your service goes. and Having a very organized mise, is a requisite for successful operation. And I've expanded that and will obviously has too.

Any, most of us have, in any job there's a set of instruments, tools, and even concepts and processes that are necessaryor potentiate your success. So he, he figures that very earlyfinancial literacy is often missing in restaurants. Oh my God. It's missing. I didn't know anything when I, but it's essential for sustainability.

A lot of chefs,we're artists, we have no idea that you also have to, light bill. And the margins in restaurants are very narrow. I remember one restaurant when I finally learned to do food costing. The difference between making money on this salad and my, what we had and losing money was, I think three olives, and I'm not kidding. Yeah, it was three. So there is a reason that we'll count the number of olives or number of cashews that get put on a dish. And you always feel like I'm being shortchanged on cashews. But that, that's too, you can't make money if you're not careful with that stuff. I choose walnuts over pine nuts even though pine nuts tastes better in the makeup of the dish. But because I will, every time I make a salad, I lose five bucks. Not smart for business, you know?So he, he realizes numbers tell the story. an example, a high cost line item isn't just about the numbers.

It reveals ordering errors and operational inefficiencies. Just like the dish soap I was talking about. Five, five kitchen managers ordering from different companies.We're wasting money. And it's not just a joke, like that's why our cooks can't have health insurance and that's why, we can't get a raise.

And that's that, all that stuff like, doesn't, that trickles down. It's not just to the, like owner's profits, but it's to especially the team's experience, so.Understanding finances is the difference between business success and blind faith. I again hearthose challenges with corporate structures. HR, so he has problems with the big structures of the company.

He fires, a very well loved server who is always late because he can get away with it and he doesn't care about his team. But his check average is so high and the patrons love him so much that he's just, and Will's not playing that game. And he's, he's like, where were you? He is like, oh.

He was like, he's you can't do that. He is like, well, I don't care. And Will's like, okay, don't bother suiting out. You're fired. And then corporate HR reinstates this guy be, and, and they don't talk to, they don't even talk to Will about it. They're just like, no, we're putting it back up. So terrible.

So that is, corporate authority with no ground level insight. Will, is not long for that company. After that, he's learned what he needs to, they're not really about, like Danny Meyer's first tenant of hospitality was just take care of each other. Not just the guests, but the employees too.

So, around this time, Danny Meyer gets the contract for all the food and beverage at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. So Will gets put in charge of everything except the fine dining restaurant, the modern, I had a friend that worked there as a pastry chef.I think they had a Michelin star. 

That sounds right. 

Yeah. did you eat there?

Kristen: No, I never ate there. But the only Danny Meyer restaurant I've eaten at is Gramercy

Tavern. Which is 

Mike: Tom Collicchio. So there's all these dovetails to people who are interested in this stuff.

If you watch, the, what is it? The Food Network, Bravo, Tom Collicchio is a major player in these restaurants in Danny Myers, yeah. So, Will gets very promoted to a very big, job very early on. Danny clearly sees his passion and his skill, right? He's developed a lot of these skills, the P and L management's very smart.

And he's Will's excited to bring the challenge of bringing like this corporate smart side to the restaurant smart company. And like,I, I get excited about stuff like that too, you know. I don't wanna work for Starbucks, but I want to have Starbucks's repeatability, 

Kristen: Mm. you 

Mike: Uh, so he balances fine dining with operational efficiency.

Navigates challenges, including keeping displays stocked without overloading inventory. You know, that's a question, are we providing the perfect service or are we also careful with money? So if you have a buffet, which they do, and you close at nine, when do I stop refilling the food at 8 55? I'm losing thousands of dollars a month in food if I do that.

But then if I am still open, shouldn't I have the best food for forget? So they work to balance that right. What we would do is we would stop at eight 15 and then if somebody came in, we might just cook them the food for them, you can find ways around.

So he developed something, he calls the rule of 95 5. I think this is genius. Uh, my nurse loves this actually.So the rule of 95 5 is if you manage 95% of your budget responsibly, it allows for 5% of foolish spending that enhances the guest and team experience. Meticulous budgeting allows for indulgences, like extravagant staff parties.

I do this right? I do this exact thing. I ensure the small comforts and luxuries for the team. Everyone has comfortable chairs. We all have three monitors. We, whatever, these little touches that actually don't hit the P and L too much. If you do the rest of it very well, you can absolutely treat the team to Starbucks, and spend treating our team to Starbucks would cost $300, $500 depending on, so it's not insignificant.

You have to be careful. But

Kristen: Yeah, I love this. I think it's a good thing to consider in many lines of businesses, not just hospitality, but he gives the example of like when he added a gelato cart in MoMA

Mike: Oh, the blue spoons.

Kristen: Yeah. And he got like a great deal on the gelato itself and all the cart and all these

Mike: things.

Yeah. He got a good deal from the gelato company.

Kristen: Yeah. But then he splurged on these tiny blue spoons from Italy that were apparently just perfect. 

Mike: They were perfect.

They were special. Yeah. and he, it was an extravagance and too expensive and not justifiable when you just look at the numbers, but it was something special and 

Kristen: Yeah. It's a great way to think about managing budgets for your team and customers.

Mike: You can't have too many blue spoons like treat culture nowadays. I'm gonna just treat myself. Well, there's my bank account. Okay. 

Kristen: But yeah. what are your blue 

Mike: What are your blue spoons?

See, there's language creating culture. I love it. Okay, Chapter Six. Pursuing a True Partnership. So early on, will, back to the beginning, will spent a summer working at Spago as half a busboy. They, because he was not good, they only gave him seven tables instead of 14. His dad got him the job, but he worked hard and enthusiastically.

He gained acceptance from colleagues. I'll tell you, like a high-spirited team member, we'll overlook your incompetence a little bit. We'll tease you about it, but we'll also help you, the, but he has some. He had some formative moments, including the chef de cuisine screaming at him when he broke a dish, just screaming at him.

And I don't even think it was his fault. I think he opened a cabinet.

Kristen: Yeah. I think it was the way the dishes were stack in the cabinet. Yeah. And so he opened it and they crashed.

Mike: So he saw a couple things and it, and, first of course, it shaped how he later critiques his own team. You obviously don't do that in public, but also, the theme in this is that the dining room is going to be as important as the kitchen, especially in fine dining.

The service, I wanna say was an afterthought, but I, there's a, like a formal stiffness, like British service, right? They're just like standing by and it's all about the food. And Will and the chef de cuisine screaming at him was part of that. It was like, you guys don't matter. Only my food matters. And that's not why we go to restaurants. 

Kristen: Mm-hmm. 

Mike: We, I, as someone who's gone to, you know, when I was in a city that I, I was unfamiliar with, I lived in Vancouver for a year. I went to the same restaurant every single day for a year. Somewhat for the fried cheese sticks that they had, because it made me comfortable.

But a lot because I knew the wait staff. They were nice, and they were kind and they were, hospitable. And I felt at home there. It wasn't just for the food. So,in the eighties we see the rise of the celebrity chef, hospitality kind of took a back seat to the cult of the chef, which we definitely have seen with Food Network culture, around this time. After theMoMA thing Danny asks Will to be the GM of Eleven Madison Park, this is still in its brasserie phase. We've been rewatching, well I've been watching for the first time, Sex and the City. Mr. Big takes Carrie to the Eleven Madison Park at one point. It's the old one.

Kristen: Oh yeah, that's right. You caught that. I

Mike: Caught that. Yeah. Danny's looking to upgrade the restaurant , right, to make it something special. And Will he asked will to be the GM. Will's hesitant due to his obviously past fine dining experiences and he has no real experience being the GM of, of something, so high end. 

He makes Danny promise. He's like, I'll do this, but I want to be the GM of Shake Shack in a year. Yeah. Which is his dream. So

Kristen: He ends up not doing,

Mike: he ends up

Kristen: up not doing,

Mike: So Danny Agrees. EMP is a brasserie at the time, and EMP is famous. They're in a very special building. 

The building was supposed to be like 20 or 30 stories tall or something. Then they finished. Then they wound up being, so the lobby where Eleven Madison Park is a giant room with I don't know, 30 foot ceilings or something. So it's this grand, grand, grand room. Which is a bit of a disconnect with the brasserie aspect of it.

So Will's like set out to figure out how to harmonize the space.They look for somebody special to be the chef and they find Daniel Huum in San Francisco, who I think he started cooking at like 14 or something. And that tracks probably washing dishes and taking out the trash in, in, in some Swiss restaurant.

But Daniel earned his first Michelin Star when he was 24. Uh, okay, so 29, he gets the job.Advice from Will's dad during this time. He is run toward what you want, not away from something else. So even though his Will's dream is to run Shake Shack,he agrees with Danny to do a one year deal.

He will run EMP if Danny lets him run Shake Shack. Danny agrees. and their first kind of. effort is to create a chef manager partnership rather than, an opposition, which in a lot of restaurants. The front of house and back of house fight a lot. Fine dining typically favors the chef supremacy over service.

Will wants to really create open communication and bridge the divide between the quick kitchen and the service. Daniel whom agrees, he's also had bad experiences with this divide before, Humm is also pretty young at the time. so he's open to like,start a revolution. And they work to make decisions together.

Chapter Seven, Setting Expectations.They, and I think genius. I just did this too with the team. They set a very concise, focused mission statement. Why are we here? And they come up with, be the four star restaurant for the next generation. So everything they do, they filter through that. 

Kristen: And the stars, this kind of confused me reading it, but I think they're talking

Mike: about That's the New York

Kristen: that's the New York Times. That's the New York Times Stars. Right. Which is out of 

Mike: That's out of four, yeah. So a four star restaurant, you're talking about La Bernadin, you're talking about Daniel and I've left Daniel Boulud out of, there's some amazing stories of Daniel Boulud, who is the most famous chef, really at top three star Michelin chef, who somehow will like, winds up, at a frat party with, and I think they smoke pot, and then Daniel who, and they get drunk off a keg.

And Daniel who's a, could not be more famous at this point. Winds up like cooking scrambled eggs for Will and his crew like at three in the morning in his apartment or something like that. It's just fucking legendary. I'm sorry, I'm gonna, I'm a little bit in the kitchen, so there's gonna be some, but it's crazy.

During his time in Cornell, I think he goes to dinner at Daniel they do like a tasting menu.They get, will gets to sit at like the chef's table, which is like overlooking the kitchen in a secret area. And I th that's right after 

Kristen: That's the dinner with his

Mike: dad. That's the dinner with his dad and Daniel.

Kristen: Yeah. He like takes such good care of them. 

Mike: He takes such good care of them. He, sits with them for hours after the kid. He's the last one to leave the restaurant. Because Daniel, I remember now Daniel came to, do a presentation i. At will for Will's College. And he met Will at the time, and he literally wound up back in Will's dorm room or something like cooking scrambled eggs. But then when Will's mom passed away, like he took his dad to eat at Daniel, took the mo and this is the most famous chef in the world, is cooking special for them, sending them,amuse bouche after amuse bouche and just making their life better and taking that pain away and Will like, you know. He remembered that forever. And Daniel, comes in and out of the, in, in and out of the story from times. Anyway. 

As you said, the four stars are fromthe New York Times and they're a New York restaurant and that is their first real mission star. Three Michelin stars is a lot, all after your goal.during this time that, I think it's like 2007 New York City fine dining is in flux.

You have many old school formal white tablecloth restaurants closing. Younger diners are rejecting stuffy formality. You have certain stalwarts like Per Se and Jean Georges who are still beloved and still maintain their three star status Michelin stars. But they're no longer at the center of the conversation.

Jean Georges is the granddaddy of granddaddies of fine dining, but he's not in the conversation as a, as a revolutionary or as like somebody on the forefront of food. Will and Daniel, they want a irreverence, informality and human connection to be what they're about while keeping fine dining's, high standards and excellence. Early team challenges.

I see you're talking about Laura.

Kristen: Yeah, no, I can't remember which situation this is about. But yeah, at some point he says so Laura's one of his managers that he trusts and he's like, every leader should have a Laura as somebody who feels comfortable telling you when you aren't acting as the best version of yourself. 

Mike: Okay. So in the beginning there's a divide between the staff, there's the old guard, there. They're more casual with the old EMP and the new managers that came with Daniel are trying to drive a new standard of excellence. They have a lot of standards in place, but no systems to deliver them. the real thing here is you're gonna, they experience,a war almost between the more traditional fine dining people that, follow the rules and regulations of fine dining, even though they don't know why they follow those rules.

And then Will, who wants to break the mold and lead with hospitality first. So, you know, Union Square's first principle will take care of each other.He finds, some of the old staff are phoning it in, but, the new team is also too rigid. he sets the standard. He talks to every team member.

He breaks up cliques, which is, It's Your Ship, right? he doesn't let managers sit together. It's staff meal. And you say a lot of this aligns with the first 90 days.

Kristen: It's like the listen first.

Mike: Mm-hmmSo during this initial phase, he looks to find people's strengths. And in this example, his father, who was a platoon leader, I think in Vietnam, he had, team member named Kentucky who was bad at everything. Like just so bad at everything. Like almost could get them shot, I don't know. But he had one thing that he was good at, he had an incredible sense of direction.

Didn't matter where you put him in the jungle, he knew which way, north way. So they kept this guy around just to be a human compass or something. Will finds a food runner who's struggling as a food runner, but for some reason his attention to detail and his leadership qualities make him the best expeditor on earth. And the expo is maybe the most important position in the restaurant. That is the person that is the go-between, between the front of the house and the kitchen. So he's the one that calls the orders, tells the chef when to cook, what keeps the tickets straight, sends them out, calls the waiters, he's the center in football.

And I don't know, but like this guy, your restaurant will live and die on the expo. This guy who couldn't run food, he could expo. So,Will loves the one minute manager approach. He critiques the behavior, not the person that's the book. One Minute Manager. Praises with emotion critiques without it, praise in public critique in private.

Handling young managers. he teaches people to avoid letting frustrations build up by being very clear about their expectations. Is a good example of, a young manager who's also, of course, friends with the team and for a long time, fails to tell a waiter that his shirt is un ironed and he wants to tell him 'cause he knows it's wrong, and he knows it's his responsibility to share with him the standards.

But he's also wants to be liked it. So Will really coaches them, set these expectations early and avoid silent resentment. You can do it in such a way, like, Hey, John, it's really good to see you. I'm glad you're here. That shirt's looking a little rough. Could you,do me a favor, go upstairs, hit it with an iron before you get on the floor.

All right. Let me know if you need anything.And getting that stuff out at the moment that it's happening rather than letting it fester is good for the managers and here he is practicing Danny Meyer's thing of taking care of the team. He's taking care of his managers.

Kristen: Yeah. And he also talks about, like, everybody on the team should be hearing more about what they did well than what they could do better. And I like this, if you can't find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that's a failure of leadership. Either you're not coaching them sufficiently.

Or you've tried and it's not working, and they should no longer be on the team or in a different role somewhere else. This is a little like Jocko esque, actually.

Mike: Leadership is leadership.

Yeah. Leadership is leadership. There's a lot of Jocko stuff in here. He talks about, every manager lives with the fantasy that their team can read their mind. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: Right. I, I, that's true of me. In reality, you have to make your expectations clear. Your team can't be excellent if you're not holding them accountable for the standards that you have set.

You need to normalize these corrections by making them swiftly, wherever they are needed and in private.Whether criticism or praises the leader's role to give their team feedback all the time, get used to it. It's not comfortable, exactly what we said. Every person on their team should be hearing more about what they did,well than what they need to do better.

Here Will figures out like 30 minutes a day can transform our culture. I agree with this. it's absolutely genius. So that, it's not revolutionary. We're gonna have a 30 minute standup meeting before before service at that time. You can talk about not just operational things, but you can start to drive the language and execution of culture. Will is at heart a systems guy, when initiating change, he looks for the best lever, whatever will allow him to transmit the most force with the least amount of energy. Hello Jiujitsu. And there is no better lever than a 30 minute meeting with your team. I really just did this in my current community. They were not doing a daily standup.

They're good. We don't need it. I was like, no, I think you do. There's a lot of dropped balls, there's a lot of miscommunications. We're gonna get together for 20 minutes a day and have a quick, what do you doing today? What do you need from me? This is what we're about. Okay. Bye. That's enough. You know.so they, at EMP, they ran their meeting and set the tone.

How they set the tone and how they ran the meeting was at least as important as how they ran service. The meeting started on time and they ended on time. He ran all the meetings for a year before letting someone else run them. He really set the tone. He removed ambiguity. He sets a very well organized template.

Probably overkill, but he wanted his notes, and his meeting organization to be as beautiful as Daniel Humm's plates. And this was a kind of hospitality for his team. I thought about this as I wrote, the elaborate spend downs for my team, and I was like, I'm gonna write them the best worksheet that they can possibly use. So he uses his pre meal meeting to communicate the why. he speaks to the spirit of the restaurant and what they're trying to build, and he really takes time to celebrate the wins at this 30 minute meeting.He goes through inspiring stories. He shares his own experiences of great hospitality and encourages others to do so.

One he shares it's fun when he went to get his haircut, and I think this became a thing in New York at the time, they'll give you a beer while you get your haircut. They offered him a glass of whiskey, do you want a shot of whiskey? And it was just a, an unnecessary, unreasonable touch of hospitality at his barber to be like, Hey, you're a dude.

We're all dudes. This is a dude world. Do you want a, do you want a whiskey? We know you're escaping from reality for 30 minutes. And I don't know if it's quite like the barbershop movies, but I. It's And that, but that's very touching to him. And he shares that at these meetings he's, pushing this, these grace notes, right?

as part of their culture. It's do one more thing that will make people, that will blow people's minds.He finds employees who aren't succeeding. They tend to really fall into two camps. Those that aren't trying, and those that are, and I also think that's genius. So if they're trying, they have to be handled differently.

If they're not trying, that's one thing. But if they are trying, you, just like Jocko talks about, like you, it's on you to coach them, counsel them, mentor them into success or to find them a different role. Or if that doesn't work, then to manage 'em out. But it's your responsibility. Employees who aren't trying.

Okay. That's a different, that's a different conversation. So, that's chapter seven.

Kristen: Yeah. And we are actually, this episode's running pretty long, so

Mike: sorry.

Kristen: Well, it's really personal for you and, there's a lot of stories and things. So

Mike: stories. I will say, if you can run a restaurant or work in a restaurant, you can do anything.

Kristen: Yeah, I can believe it. Having not worked in a restaurant, I can, I have a lot, way

Mike: But you see how I work in our, in our home, how I move packages, like how I keep our, there, there's the nece. It's it's a little like being at war. It's not quite as violent, but it's a little bit, and you have to adapt and perform and you have to strive,and every moment counts.

I, I just we're trying to make my 50th birthday reservation at the French Laundry.And I'm on, the French Laundry's website and in Thomas Keller's kitchen, apparently in every kitchen of his. There is a Vacheron Constantin clock, which Vacheron Constantintan is one of the original big three Swiss clock.

You know, it's very expensive. They're not that good. They're okay. And under it is, just the inscription, sense of urgency. 

Kristen: Oh, that's like on The Bear where they have like every

Mike: sense of urgency. Well,

Kristen: counts or something like

Mike: that, both Thomas Keller and Will,

Kristen: came from.

Mike: And will both Thomas Keller and Will Guidara consulted on The Bear.

Kristen: Yeah, that's, yeah, that makes

Mike: So The Bear, if you haven't seen it, is, I would say a 90% realistic, exploration of what restaurant life is like, including the mental health challenges, the abuse, the, internalized, unexplored trauma.The only thing in that show that doesn't resonate is locking that dude in the walk-in.

It's not cool, man, and somebody should have told them that. Doesn't happen. Other than that, his kind of mental health journey and the way the chefs treated him and his obsessive,almost,pathological need to win and drive is very, very accurate.

Kristen: Yeah, yeah.

It's also just a great show

Mike: It's just such a good show anyway.

Kristen: I know we've talked about it before in

Mike: So what you learn in a restaurant is sense of urgency. From the moment you walk in until you leave, you are going, and you better figure it out, because it's a merciless world.

People when, think about it, people come in, they're hungry,When I'm hungry and my gra Yeah. So imagine a hundred of us, Anyway, so yes. Episode's running along. My wife's cutting us off. We'll be back next week.

Kristen: Yeah. So we're gonna, we're gonna split this into two parts, just so it doesn't become a three hour episode and

Mike: Still might be a three hour 

Kristen: episode. We'll see. At some point we need to like go to bed, so, you know,

Mike: Listen, you made me do this. Okay.

Kristen: so

Mike: I wanted to nap.

Kristen: ~Yeah,~ yeah. Yep. We're committed. We're committed to you guys. What can, what can

Mike: of urgency.

Kristen: So we're gonna wrap here, and then we will see you guys next week with part two of this LBC on Unreasonable Hospitality. So thank you guys.

Mike: Dun, dun, dun. Okay.


Kristen: The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

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