Setting the Table: Lessons and inspirations from one of the world's leading entrepreneurs - Hardcover

Meyer, Danny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0462099083 ISBN 13: 9780462099088

Publisher: Cyan Books and Marshall Cavendish, 2007

Synopsis

From an award-winning restauranteur comes an intimate and inspirational portrait of business well done, with hands-on advice, enlightening anecdotes, and the fascinating story of staggering success in one of the world s most unforgiving arenas.

About this title

Review

Any restauranteur, for that matter any businessperson or entrepreneur should read this book. Danny Meyer runs a great business and a terrific book. --Gordon Ransay

When London restauranteurs discuss their New York counterparts the name Danny Meyer is invariably at the forefront - and none of us has articulated better just how to make a restaurant, or indeed any service business outstanding. --Jeremy King, co founder of Le Caprice, The Ivy, J Sheekey, The Wolseley and St Alban

From the Back Cover

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• Context, context, context, trumps the outdated location, location, location.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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cyan Books and Marshall Cavendish
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0462099083
• ISBN 13: 9780462099088
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336