Speaker 1: The restaurants that fully understand hospitality are ones where if
Speaker 1: you and I go to that restaurant, we're gonna feel
Speaker 1: more connected to one another at the end of that
Speaker 1: meal than we did when we went into it. Will
Speaker 1: Gadera is the former co owner and general manager of
Speaker 1: the acclaimed Live in Madison Park restaurant in New York City. Will,
Speaker 1: who like me, appreciates attention to detail, was able to
Speaker 1: guide the restaurant from struggling to star Broscerie not bad
Speaker 1: but not what he wanted, to a number one in
Speaker 1: the world along with amazing food. Eleven Madison Park is
Speaker 1: known for its legendary hospitality. Will's new book, and I
Speaker 1: have a copyright with me, is called Unreasonable Hospitality, the
Speaker 1: remarkable power of giving people more than they expect, and
Speaker 1: it serves as a guide for business leaders in any industry.
Speaker 1: And I'm very excited to talk to him about that
Speaker 1: and many other things today. Will, it's my pleasure to
Speaker 1: have you here at my farm and on my podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. Thanks. And we met
Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks ago, formally at a party
Speaker 1: for Carly close to Supermodel's thirtieth birthday. That was a
Speaker 1: fun party. It was. It was very fun to see
Speaker 1: you and see Christina Tosi, who's Will's wife of how
Speaker 1: many years now? We are at six years? Oh? Really
Speaker 1: that long? It seems like yesterday when she got married
Speaker 1: to you and you have a child. We have one
Speaker 1: daughter named Frankie Francis I read it. Her name was Francis.
Speaker 1: We call her Frankie. She's named after my dad and
Speaker 1: he is he Frankie. Well now his name is Francis
Speaker 1: and we're just trying to come up with a slate
Speaker 1: to well, No, that's very cute. I have a brother
Speaker 1: named frank who we called Frankie for all the time
Speaker 1: he was growing up. My dad was very happy when
Speaker 1: when he got the nod. Oh how nice I bet
Speaker 1: he was. Is that the first grandchild for him? It's
Speaker 1: his first grandchild. That's lovely and it was great see Christina. Christina,
Speaker 1: by the way, is the founder of the Milk Bar,
Speaker 1: famous for her really unusual cookies. Uh. And she was
Speaker 1: partnered originally with David Chang. Are they still partners. They're
Speaker 1: not partners anymore. I mean they're like brothers and sisters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But Milk Bar is kind of blossomed into its own thing,
Speaker 1: going cool, cool life and very I did very well
Speaker 1: on the wife. I feel pretty good about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've had a really storied career so far. You went
Speaker 1: to Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and you interned
Speaker 1: in Spain. We're in Spain. I was in the north
Speaker 1: of Spain and in a town called San paul Um.
Speaker 1: I went there right after I graduated college. I had
Speaker 1: so much fun at college that I never wanted to
Speaker 1: do a study abroad program, and then graduation was nearing
Speaker 1: and I started to regret that a little bit. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I just went to a hotel school in
Speaker 1: the north of Spain and chopped vegetables effectively in exchange
Speaker 1: for room and board, and was there for about three
Speaker 1: months before four months before going back to New York
Speaker 1: and working with Danny Meyer. So for you started right
Speaker 1: off with Danny Meyer, the legendary Danny Meyer. Legendary Danny
Speaker 1: who has made such an amazing career of hospitality and
Speaker 1: restaurants and now, uh, the humblest of all his operations
Speaker 1: is the Shake Shack. One of my favorite haunts. I
Speaker 1: love hot dogs. I have this crazy love of hot dogs.
Speaker 1: I think I got it from my mom, who also
Speaker 1: loved hot dogs. Growing up, we had Rudd's Hut in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Three Yeah, they had really good hot dogs,
Speaker 1: and so every now and then Mom and I would
Speaker 1: go and get a hot dog at Rhod's Hut. So
Speaker 1: my whole family is from New England, and so the
Speaker 1: way that they would make hot dogs back in the
Speaker 1: day was like butter searing the hot dogs, and then
Speaker 1: like the the buns where it's not crusted all the
Speaker 1: way around, it's like a split cut, yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: then steering that and butter just mustard, and then what
Speaker 1: about the baked beans, and then we have the baked
Speaker 1: beans on the side, on the side. That's how we
Speaker 1: had them in our house too. And although sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: the hot dogs were boiled, my mother like boiled if
Speaker 1: they were really good hot dogs. But then I discovered
Speaker 1: the fried hot dog at there's a fabulous hot dog
Speaker 1: place in fair Field right on right on Root one
Speaker 1: and fair Field called Rawley's. And they made, uh, they
Speaker 1: fried their hot dogs. First, they boiled them, then they
Speaker 1: threw them into into hot oil and they burst a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then they put them on buttered toasted buns.
Speaker 1: With with they don't. They didn't have souer Kraus, so
Speaker 1: weird because I love sour cry, but they had relish
Speaker 1: mustard and bacon, and we could just spend this entire
Speaker 1: podcast talking about hot dogs. I just love that that
Speaker 1: that you worked for Danny Meyer when he was developed Well, no,
Speaker 1: he had developed that after you left, right because you
Speaker 1: were you then went to whe Cuisine. Well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when I went to eleven Madison Park to take
Speaker 1: over as the general manager, shake Shack was open in
Speaker 1: the park. It was just that one, just the one,
Speaker 1: and we were in the burgers were still the burger
Speaker 1: patties were being formed in the private dining room kitchen
Speaker 1: at eleven Medicals they were, and so literally in the
Speaker 1: middle of the lunch service you would be carrying out
Speaker 1: carrying out trays of raw burger me through the front door.
Speaker 1: So you went as general manager right from right from
Speaker 1: working as a trainee at at Jenny's. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, no,
Speaker 1: so my journey was I went from Spain, started with
Speaker 1: Danny Meyer at Tabla, working with the late Floyd car
Speaker 1: does Um, which you know, I still think bread barr
Speaker 1: at Tabla back in the day was one of the
Speaker 1: greatest restaurants. It was so delicious. Absolutely. Then I went
Speaker 1: to work at a place called Restaurant Associates, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know that's a big corporate catering and andspital
Speaker 1: everything from the US Open to Lincoln Center to the
Speaker 1: met Opera, where I was doing purchasing and accounting. My
Speaker 1: dad's in the restaurant business, and he always wanted me
Speaker 1: to learn kind of every element of the business before
Speaker 1: I one day did my own thing. And from there
Speaker 1: I opened all the restaurants again with Danny Meyer at
Speaker 1: the Museum of Modern Art, so delicious. I love that restaurant.
Speaker 1: I loved it was a special place. It is a
Speaker 1: special um Before eventually in two thousand and six, going
Speaker 1: to live, I guess that's where I first met you
Speaker 1: at the Maybe that was when I first met you.
Speaker 1: Probably at Moment. I was the first person to actually
Speaker 1: have an office at Moment because they had closed the
Speaker 1: museum to do the big renovation, and the restaurant people
Speaker 1: were the first to go in. And when I first
Speaker 1: went to MoMA, my office was on the fifth floor,
Speaker 1: about three thousand square feet, overlook in the sculpture garden
Speaker 1: until all the museum staff started moving back in and
Speaker 1: then I got subsequently bumped down until I ended up
Speaker 1: in the subseller where where my office was for the
Speaker 1: rest of my time there, and then from there and
Speaker 1: then from there to eleven Madisone Park. So that was
Speaker 1: already a brosery that was a broserate and was that
Speaker 1: Danielle was he running the brosery at that time, So yeah,
Speaker 1: he had just been hired about six months before I
Speaker 1: was Danny Meyer who owned it before I bought it
Speaker 1: from him. Um saw the room and just wanted the
Speaker 1: restaurant to be like one that could live up to
Speaker 1: its room because the room is, you know, thirty five
Speaker 1: foot ceilings, no extraordinary, and that building is which which
Speaker 1: what's the name of that building? That was the original
Speaker 1: MetLife building which one? It was being built, was meant
Speaker 1: to be the tallest building in the world before the
Speaker 1: recession hits. So it's only like thirty five stories. But
Speaker 1: the lobby spaces where the restaurant is are unbelievably ground
Speaker 1: they are. So you changed that brossery infested you work
Speaker 1: to get it changed well, So we got there in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. I'm glad, you know, your chronology.
Speaker 1: So well, this is this is something complicated read in
Speaker 1: the book helped helps made to restore my memory. Um,
Speaker 1: I sold the restaurant at the beginning of two thousand twenty.
Speaker 1: So you owned the physical restaurant. Yes, okay, So I
Speaker 1: started with Daniel whom we owned it together, partners, we're partners.
Speaker 1: Got there in two thousand six, bought it in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, um, and then it was in two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen that we were named the best restaurant in the world.
Speaker 1: So eleven years after eleven years it took to become
Speaker 1: number one, which is a minuscule amount of time in
Speaker 1: the restaurant world. Wow, that was some fantastic accomplishment. And
Speaker 1: I just I just loved eating at eleven Madison Park
Speaker 1: when you were number one. I mean really, we had
Speaker 1: the best meals, so so particular each dish, but not
Speaker 1: so particular that it was like intimidating to eat. Everything
Speaker 1: was so tasty and so beautifully prepared in that kitchen
Speaker 1: with all those fantastic shifts. We had a beautiful kids,
Speaker 1: did amazing kitchen. So you parted ways with Daniel, whom
Speaker 1: which was surprising to everybody. Yeah, and then he turned vegan.
Speaker 1: Then he went vegan. Yeah, why did you have a
Speaker 1: life change or something? You know, I'm not sure, Like
Speaker 1: I believe, and you know, with the focus of the
Speaker 1: book just about like being unreasonable in pursuit of hospitality.
Speaker 1: I believe we were the best vegan restaurant out there
Speaker 1: when we were still serving me because that was always
Speaker 1: something that was very important to me. Is no matter
Speaker 1: what people walked into the room with, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think you can ever try to be all things to
Speaker 1: all people, but if you sense that certain people are
Speaker 1: looking to dine in a certain way, you should be
Speaker 1: ready to deliver just as good an experience to them
Speaker 1: as as you are anywhere else. So you started thinking
Speaker 1: about that already before you left. Yeah, I mean never,
Speaker 1: I was never a part of a conversation to go
Speaker 1: completely vegan. But it was always important to me on
Speaker 1: the hospitality side that no matter what your dietary restrictions were,
Speaker 1: that we could give you the best meal that you've had.
Speaker 1: We will get back to this unreasonable Now, this this
Speaker 1: is a hard title for a book, because you're not
Speaker 1: at all really unreasonable. You are really really encompassing the
Speaker 1: best tenants of all for for restaurant UM development and
Speaker 1: restaurant service and restaurant everything. So why did why why
Speaker 1: did they start calling it hospitality instead of the restaurant business. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a nice it's a nice way to call it
Speaker 1: and to describe it. Yeah, I mean, like my, my
Speaker 1: whole thing with even the hospitality industry to begin with,
Speaker 1: I think most people think of the hospitality industry as
Speaker 1: being restaurants, hotels, cruise lines a few other things like that, UM,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, simply put, I think it
Speaker 1: was called the hospitality industry because those are the businesses
Speaker 1: where people seem to care about hospitality and taking care
Speaker 1: of guests, taking care of visitors, taking care of people
Speaker 1: who are coming to eat something that's hospitality. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: recognizing that hospitality is not the thing you're serving. It's
Speaker 1: not how you serve it. It's the way you make
Speaker 1: people feel when you serve it. Like service is cooking
Speaker 1: the steak in the right way, delivering it to the
Speaker 1: right person within the right amount of time. Hospitality is
Speaker 1: how do you feel at the end of the night
Speaker 1: when you leave the restaurant. If it's just that you
Speaker 1: thought the food was delicious and it was an efficient
Speaker 1: experience that was not one where you received hospitality. I
Speaker 1: think hospitality with the ambiance of the place too. I
Speaker 1: think hospitality, Yeah, I think the ambiance for sure, if
Speaker 1: the person is thinking about the ambiance with the intention
Speaker 1: of creating conditions where people can connect. My belief system
Speaker 1: is that in a restaurant, the food, the service, and
Speaker 1: the design are simply ingredients and the recipe of human connection.
Speaker 1: The restaurants that fully understand hospitality are ones where if
Speaker 1: you and I go to that restaurant, we're going to
Speaker 1: feel more connected to one another at the end of
Speaker 1: that meal than we did when we went into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a nice way to put it, and I believe
Speaker 1: that any business can be in the hospitality industry if
Speaker 1: they choose to put that type of thinking kind of
Speaker 1: in the center of how they make decisions. Like if
Speaker 1: you're in an office and morale is low, don't say, oh,
Speaker 1: have a happy hour. Yeah, fix what's making the morale
Speaker 1: go down right, and and then create the conditions where
Speaker 1: the people that work there feel like connected, not only
Speaker 1: to the people they work for. Are you opening a
Speaker 1: consulting business to help us business owners make sure that
Speaker 1: we are being hospitable. I mean, I've been doing some
Speaker 1: consulting in this middle time. Yeah, this is a good
Speaker 1: idea which has been fun. If we're with medical institutions,
Speaker 1: I've worked with luxury retail brands. And the reason it's
Speaker 1: called unreasonable hospitality. And I appreciate thinking that I'm not
Speaker 1: an unreasonable person, which I don't think I am. But
Speaker 1: like when you look at I mean, the people that
Speaker 1: are most successful are unreasonable in their pursuit of something. Right,
Speaker 1: You've been unreasonable in your career, in your pursuit of
Speaker 1: creating everything that you've created. You look at Lebron James,
Speaker 1: He's been unreasonable and become the basketball player he is,
Speaker 1: or Scorsese or Steve Jobs. And I believe that following,
Speaker 1: especially in the last couple of years, where everyone feels
Speaker 1: such a lack of connection, that it's time for more
Speaker 1: people in their lives and as leaders of their businesses
Speaker 1: to start being just as unreasonable in their pursuit of
Speaker 1: how they make people feel. So being unreasonable is also
Speaker 1: being unaccepting of mediocracy, the unaccepting of of serving something
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be serving. Yes, yeah, I totally get it.
Speaker 1: Like unwavering being fiercely dedicated, being willing to do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes to make the people you serve and those
Speaker 1: that you work with. Giving this booktual a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but I'm also going to give this part of the
Speaker 1: podcast to them. I like having this verbalized like you're
Speaker 1: doing because it's so important. It really is, Like I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example. Actually that comes down to the
Speaker 1: hot dog because we the whole thing started because we
Speaker 1: went to the fifty Best the fifty best wards the
Speaker 1: first year on that list, but we came in last
Speaker 1: place at a fifty at a fifty, which there's a
Speaker 1: good result, but I felt demoralized, haven't Okay, so you
Speaker 1: felt demoralized, Yeah, a little bit, were motivated in the
Speaker 1: top fifty. Yeah, but in that room we were last.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but guess what you know, room for improvement. Well,
Speaker 1: and my my dad always says, adversity is a terrible
Speaker 1: thing to waste, and you know, there's there's no there's
Speaker 1: no way around. It was just embarrassing to come in
Speaker 1: last place in that room because you're like, you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're on the list now. And then that
Speaker 1: was eleven Madison Park, So you're just a brasserie. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just a bras were. We're on our way, but
Speaker 1: we hadn't arrived yet. But that whole number one thing.
Speaker 1: Every restaurant that topped that list did so because they
Speaker 1: made some impact, right front, Adrea at El Belie with
Speaker 1: molecular guests. This was this was worldwide fifty restaurants. You
Speaker 1: should have been so proud of yourself when we got there.
Speaker 1: We really were. But you know, fron Adrea pioneer molecular gastronomy,
Speaker 1: Renee red zepiet Noma pioneered foraging and local. And the
Speaker 1: impact that I wanted to make was all the chefs
Speaker 1: on that list were unreasonable with what they put on
Speaker 1: the plate, and I wanted to be the restaurant that
Speaker 1: started to be just as unreasonable and how we served
Speaker 1: that food and York, Yeah, and so we I got
Speaker 1: back to the restaurant and I had this idea of
Speaker 1: unreasonable hospitality in my head, but I didn't know what
Speaker 1: it meant. So you name that. This is way back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten. You were already thinking about
Speaker 1: unreasonably this idea. That's great. Um, so it's taken you
Speaker 1: twelve years to write the book to get the book out. Great.
Speaker 1: I started at a few different times, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: until COVID that you got you got to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you need the world to slow down
Speaker 1: enough for things to come into focus a little bit,
Speaker 1: and yourself to slow down. Yeah, exactly. And your baby
Speaker 1: gave you enough free time. My baby, my baby thankfully
Speaker 1: was born when I was about eighty percent of the
Speaker 1: way through it. Um. But I was in the dinning
Speaker 1: room one day and there was a table of four
Speaker 1: Europeans who were on vacation to New York. There were
Speaker 1: foodies who are leaving to go back to the airport
Speaker 1: to head home after their lunch, and I overheard them talking.
Speaker 1: They're like, what an amazing trip We've been to all
Speaker 1: the best restaurants per se Danielle Le Bernadine Mamofuku now
Speaker 1: at the Medicine Park. And then another one jumped in.
Speaker 1: So the only thing we haven't had is in New
Speaker 1: York City street hot dog And so you know those
Speaker 1: moments in a cartoon or the light bulb. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I walked as calmly as I could back to the
Speaker 1: kitchen and then sprint it out the front door of
Speaker 1: the restaurant down the block to the hot dog cart it.
Speaker 1: I got a hot dog, brought it in, talk about
Speaker 1: ten minutes to convince Daniel to serve it, and then
Speaker 1: we cut it into four perfect pieces, putting on four
Speaker 1: plates a little swish of ketchup, a swish of mustard,
Speaker 1: a cannell of sauerkraut, and a cannell of relish. And
Speaker 1: before their final savory course, we brought it out and
Speaker 1: I said, to make sure you don't go home with
Speaker 1: any culinary regrets in New York City hot dog. So
Speaker 1: you took made the effort, and because you were also
Speaker 1: very nosey and overhearing, you make a point of you
Speaker 1: make a point of in the book by the way,
Speaker 1: that it's not bad to be nosy, not bad to
Speaker 1: over here. Well, it's I mean being nosy overhearing is
Speaker 1: I think it's just caring enough about the relationship where
Speaker 1: you choose to care about what they're saying and then
Speaker 1: try to serve them in a way that it's unique
Speaker 1: to them. For stock chips don't take the stock chips,
Speaker 1: don't susts or at least do so subtly. Um. But
Speaker 1: when I served them that hot dog, I had never
Speaker 1: seen anyone respond to anything I'd served them like they
Speaker 1: did to that because it was just for them. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the ethos of this how because by
Speaker 1: the way, serving people as individuals, as opposed to just
Speaker 1: coming up with the thing you want to serve and
Speaker 1: serving it to everyone that is unreasonable. It takes a
Speaker 1: lot of energy, but the look on someone's face when
Speaker 1: they receive a gift that you're responsible for giving them
Speaker 1: is one of the most energizing things out there. I
Speaker 1: think part of unreasonable hospitality is taking what you do
Speaker 1: seriously without taking yourself so seriously that you don't do
Speaker 1: the things that will actually make people happy. And you
Speaker 1: know what, I think your wife is also that way.
Speaker 1: She's unreasonable because look at what she's done with corn
Speaker 1: flakes and milk. If you don't know who Christina Tosi is,
Speaker 1: you should all look her up every because she took
Speaker 1: corn flakes, soaked them in milk, and then used that
Speaker 1: corn flake milk in her cookies or cakes. Cake that
Speaker 1: was a cake. And I, you know, I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: it when I first read the recipe. And what did
Speaker 1: she do with the corn flakes? She threw them away,
Speaker 1: gave him to the pigs, but it was interesting to
Speaker 1: start breaking them up here to your animals, my chickens
Speaker 1: were love but but fun. You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: fun and unreasonable and unexpected and successful all at the
Speaker 1: same time. Well, and she has the very definition of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, my wife is very hard working, very disciplined.
Speaker 1: She takes what she does very seriously, but she doesn't
Speaker 1: take herself so seriously that she can't see the beautiful
Speaker 1: opportunities for creativity and innovation that sometimes sit right in
Speaker 1: front of our faces. It's so great. So when you
Speaker 1: were back at eleven Madison Park and changing into the
Speaker 1: number one restaurant, what did you have to change? You
Speaker 1: change a lot? Was it you? Was it service? Was
Speaker 1: it ambiance? Was it the plates? We changed absolutely everything
Speaker 1: slowly over time. You know, we didn't close it, do
Speaker 1: a big renovation and reopen it. It was. It was
Speaker 1: so incremental that at a certain point it started to
Speaker 1: feel almost inevitable. Right. It started with uniforms, plates, the menu,
Speaker 1: it stopped being in all the cart and then became
Speaker 1: a price fixed before it became a tasting menu. You know,
Speaker 1: we went from big brasso replates with the red line
Speaker 1: around the rim to the beautiful Bernadoux. Until we finally
Speaker 1: moved into custom made porcelain from a local manufacturer, it
Speaker 1: got more and more and more the number one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think it's kind of one
Speaker 1: of the beautiful things if you allow the business you're
Speaker 1: running to start, if you start treating it like a living,
Speaker 1: breathing organism, then you can just slowly make it better
Speaker 1: and better and better. Educating a trial, yeah, giving them
Speaker 1: more and more opportunities to learn. Yeah, if you recognize
Speaker 1: that you're never there's no there's no concept of being done.
Speaker 1: It's just a beautiful journey that continues in perpetuity, and
Speaker 1: there's inflection points along that. So how did you separate
Speaker 1: yourself from your baby? You know? Was it hard? That
Speaker 1: was definitely hard. It was definitely hard. But were you
Speaker 1: brought out? I was bought out, so that that helped.
Speaker 1: Being brought out, that helped um and my baby actually
Speaker 1: having a real baby helped. I think when you do
Speaker 1: something your entire life and you're very celebrated for doing it,
Speaker 1: it starts to become your identity, right, And so when
Speaker 1: when I sold that company, I almost started frantically going
Speaker 1: to open new restaurants, and when COVID started on March
Speaker 1: whatever fift, I was one week away, this is not
Speaker 1: hyperbole from signing three new restaurant leases in the city.
Speaker 1: And then I moved up to the country and for
Speaker 1: what I thought was going to be a couple of months,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, you know what this is?
Speaker 1: This is the life I want to live. So is
Speaker 1: there a difference between service and hospitality? I mean, you
Speaker 1: touched on it a little bit, but is there a difference?
Speaker 1: There must be, yeah. So one of the things in
Speaker 1: the book that back in the day when I was
Speaker 1: at TABLEA, I wasn't, you know, a confident manager yet
Speaker 1: I was a fresh out of college, and so I
Speaker 1: always wrote interview questions when I sat down with someone. Now,
Speaker 1: I just believe in letting a conversation flow and seeing
Speaker 1: if it's someone I want to spend time with. But
Speaker 1: that was the question I always used to ask new people,
Speaker 1: what's the difference between service and hospitality? The best answer
Speaker 1: I ever got was from a woman who said, services
Speaker 1: black and white and hospitality is color. Service of the
Speaker 1: things that we do. Hospitality is the way that we
Speaker 1: engage with people when we do those things services putting
Speaker 1: a plate down, Hospitality is the eye contact and the
Speaker 1: connection you established with the person you're giving the plate
Speaker 1: to when you put it down. When I was coming
Speaker 1: up people, I was talking about excellence in hospitality. You
Speaker 1: hire for hospitality, you train excellence. I think you can
Speaker 1: train both. I think hospitality is just as much of
Speaker 1: a craft as cooking or service or anything is, and
Speaker 1: therefore you can teach a craft. I think one of
Speaker 1: the best ways to teach it, though, is to encourage it.
Speaker 1: I think it's much easier to know how good it
Speaker 1: feels to give hospitality to extend graciousness to other people
Speaker 1: once you first experience how good it feels to receive it,
Speaker 1: and then I think is a part of the leader's
Speaker 1: job is to encourage hospitality by delivering it to the
Speaker 1: people that you hope will then turn around and deliver
Speaker 1: it to your guests. There's this quote which I've come
Speaker 1: to learn is misattributed to my Angelou, which is people
Speaker 1: will forget what you say, they'll forget what you do,
Speaker 1: but they'll never forget how you made them feel like
Speaker 1: in in five years. When you're describing that meal, the
Speaker 1: thing you're going to remember is how you felt, especially
Speaker 1: the next day when you were texting with your friend.
Speaker 1: And that has nothing to do with anything except for
Speaker 1: hospital exactly. Go back to Cornell. You took a class
Speaker 1: cold guest Chefs. Well, that's actually a really good segue.
Speaker 1: Tell us that class inspire you and what did you
Speaker 1: learn from that? Well, there's a classic Cornell called Guest Chefs.
Speaker 1: They bring up a famous chef every semester and the
Speaker 1: classes split up into three groups, management, dining room, employees,
Speaker 1: in kitchen, and plays. I was in the management team
Speaker 1: when Daniel Ballud came up and cooked at Cornell, and
Speaker 1: my role was marketing the event now was Daniel Balloud,
Speaker 1: which meant that it was going to sell out no
Speaker 1: matter what. So I decided that my role was entertaining
Speaker 1: the chef. And it was an amazing event, obviously, and
Speaker 1: I brought Daniel Blood and his Sioux chefs and everyone
Speaker 1: down to my house at one thirty College Avenue, where
Speaker 1: I treated him to the best form of hospitality I
Speaker 1: understood at the time, which was a keg party. Daniel
Speaker 1: and I became close through that experience, So you had
Speaker 1: a keg of beer, We had a keg of beer
Speaker 1: Milwaukee's best, and Daniel made scrambled eggs and truffles for
Speaker 1: all of the students. The reason the story is relevant
Speaker 1: is because we became close enough that my mom passed
Speaker 1: away the day after I graduated college. She had been
Speaker 1: sick for a long time, and because of that, I
Speaker 1: almost didn't go to Spain as planned. But my dad
Speaker 1: encouraged me too, and by the time I went to
Speaker 1: buy my ticket to Spain, he lived in Boston at
Speaker 1: the time, I can only find one leaving from New York.
Speaker 1: So he drove me to the airport and it felt
Speaker 1: like the right time to call Daniel Balloud. Remember I'm
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, but he gave me his number.
Speaker 1: He goes anything you ever need, and so I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'd like to bring my dad to Danielle And so
Speaker 1: he set us up in the sky box, which is
Speaker 1: ere my grandchildren. There isn't that a special treat? And
Speaker 1: so for anyone listening, the sky box is a room
Speaker 1: that sits with a window overlooking the kitchen, and it's
Speaker 1: amazing and your food is brought up to from from
Speaker 1: all those fabulous stoves and you're watching it being cooked
Speaker 1: and the whole thing. And this was a night where
Speaker 1: I mean my dad's wife, my mother had just passed away.
Speaker 1: It should have been one of our saddest nights, but
Speaker 1: because of the warmth and the graciousness, the hospitality that
Speaker 1: Danielle and his team extended to us became one of
Speaker 1: our best nights. And your father will never forget it,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget you. You were taking care of him.
Speaker 1: It was my first time taking him out to dinner.
Speaker 1: Danielle was taking care of you both. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: like one of the things I talked about in the
Speaker 1: book is that in restaurants and really any customer service business,
Speaker 1: we have an opportunity to create our own magical worlds
Speaker 1: in a world that needs more magic, simply by virtue
Speaker 1: of how we invest in the people around us. And
Speaker 1: that night was the first time I recognized how powerful
Speaker 1: the gifts you give through hospitality can be because you
Speaker 1: can you can always help people celebrate moments, but sometimes
Speaker 1: you can give people the grace, if only for a
Speaker 1: few hours, to forget about the really hard moments. I
Speaker 1: think that's a really beautiful thing that I hope more
Speaker 1: people are inspired to want to do. I hope a
Speaker 1: lot of restaurant terms, or but I, but I genuinely
Speaker 1: believe that it could happen at a car dealership or
Speaker 1: at a barbershop, or when you go to rent a
Speaker 1: car on vacation or on the plane on your way. Like,
Speaker 1: I just think it would be a beautiful world if
Speaker 1: more people recognize that it's not just good on the
Speaker 1: receiving end, it feels really damn good on the giving
Speaker 1: end too. At the end, it was impossible to get
Speaker 1: a table into leven Madison Park. The people that that
Speaker 1: did get a table, I'm sure considered themselves lucky that
Speaker 1: they were able to have dinner there. But it was
Speaker 1: always very important to me that we never became the
Speaker 1: kind of restaurant that treated them as if they were
Speaker 1: lucky to be dining with us, and actually the opposite.
Speaker 1: We always lead with gratitude that people were trusting us
Speaker 1: with their time and their money. Why do you say
Speaker 1: there's nothing more flattering than a guest walking into the
Speaker 1: restaurant with luggage, well, luggage like suitcase with suitcases, Because
Speaker 1: that means that they want their experience with you to
Speaker 1: be either their first or their last memory of their trip.
Speaker 1: So they're on their way to the airport, or they're
Speaker 1: just they've just gotten there. They've either they either can't
Speaker 1: wait to go, or it's the thing that they want
Speaker 1: to have as the lasting memory of their trip. Like
Speaker 1: I'll give you my example, which is not an eleven
Speaker 1: Madison Park style example, but every time I travel to
Speaker 1: l A. And I'm sure a lot of people do
Speaker 1: this as well, based on how busy it is. I
Speaker 1: get up the plan, I got directly to In and
Speaker 1: Out Burger. I just knew you were going to do that.
Speaker 1: In and Out Burger. Everybody, if you haven't been there,
Speaker 1: go there double double animal style. No, no, no. And
Speaker 1: because it's like for me, it signifies that I am
Speaker 1: now in Los Angeles, and if you can be that,
Speaker 1: it means that you represent someone's emotional connections so much
Speaker 1: to a city. I think it's a pretty powerful thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's awfully nice. So you've dined in many restaurants
Speaker 1: all over the world. Which dining experiences have impressed you
Speaker 1: the most? And weird, I mean, there's a lot. The
Speaker 1: one I'm I'm thinking about right now because out of
Speaker 1: the corner of my eye, I see your linear cookbook.
Speaker 1: I love the meals. I've had a line and I
Speaker 1: love them because, Okay, he is very innovative, right, very
Speaker 1: forward thinking. Um, but there's also like a deliciousness and
Speaker 1: a nostalgia to his food that the last time I
Speaker 1: went there. There are two courses that will never forget.
Speaker 1: M One was a helium balloon, where the balloon was edible,
Speaker 1: and so here's this very serious, important restaurant. It was
Speaker 1: a dessert and so they literally it's like an apple
Speaker 1: kind of taffy balloon, and so you'll see blown and
Speaker 1: then filled with helium, and they bring it over and
Speaker 1: then the guests inhale the helium and start talking and laughing,
Speaker 1: and then they eat this delicious thing. So it's engaging,
Speaker 1: it's experiential, it's funny. And then the way that they
Speaker 1: finished the course, their final dessert, I think is so brilliant.
Speaker 1: Everyone else looks at a table and sees the table
Speaker 1: and then puts plates on the table. Grant looked at
Speaker 1: the tables of his restaurant and saw plates. And so
Speaker 1: they roll out a silicone mat to over the entire table,
Speaker 1: and they take everything else off, and then they played
Speaker 1: a giant dessert across the entire table, which I think
Speaker 1: is brilliant. It's fun, it's entertaining, and then the way
Speaker 1: it brings people together. You and I are both our
Speaker 1: entire table just turned into a giant Willy Wonka style
Speaker 1: dessert and you just all eat it from this and
Speaker 1: you're just all digging in and so like the the
Speaker 1: idea of like creating community around the table. I think
Speaker 1: I think they do it very very well, as long
Speaker 1: as it's not that drink where they're straws sticking into
Speaker 1: it and you're all drinking out of this scene. No,
Speaker 1: that's taking it too far. That's awful. You always think
Speaker 1: who's spitting in? Think after I think that trend is,
Speaker 1: I think that looks done. I think I won't. I won't.
Speaker 1: I never did that. You say, many companies focus on products,
Speaker 1: but I've forgotten about the people. I think that you
Speaker 1: are remembering the people so nicely in this book and
Speaker 1: in the work that you have done. Thank you and
Speaker 1: the best of luck. This has been a very very
Speaker 1: nice conversation, and I and I wish you well, and
Speaker 1: I wish all of us well in all the restaurants
Speaker 1: that we go to after they read Unreasonable, The remarkable
Speaker 1: power of giving people more than they expect. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Thank you, I appreciate it.