It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

I just ordered the new book by Danny Meyer called Setting the Table: The Tranforming Power of Hospitality in Business. For those of you who aren't restaurateurs or New Yorkers, Meyer is something of the golden child in the progressive (but not too progressive) restaurant industry. His first establishment, Union Square Cafe, was voted the most popular eatery in New York for some multiple of years in a row, and now there are a hefty handful of other hip and diverse Meyer restaurants sprinkled through that city.

My wife and I gave Union Square Cafe a try our last time in New York, despite my aversion to things labeled "most popular" anything. (It makes me think of "the world's largest Bennigans!" on Times Square). To my surprise the experience was wonderful. Far from being knocked about at a crowded bar waiting for a table, or worse, feeling inferior to the snooty, sublime environment, we felt welcomed and apppreciated in a very human way. The service was, well...warm and professional. The food was fantastic, and we lingered at the table with overt approval from the staff.

The experience caused us to seek out a second of his restaurants, Tabla, which offered modern American fare imbued with Indian accents, or maybe vice versa. Anyways, it was a different but no less impressive meal and evening. In fact, given the table we were at, and the service, I wondered if we had been mistaken for some couple of note.

So, what is Danny Meyer's secret?

It really comes down to that one word: hospitality. That is his business model, in all the word encompasses. It's not "quality" or "service." It's hospitality. It's how he sets up his restaurants, how he communicates to his team.

But here's the distinction in strategy: it's how he hires. His main point is that - if your raison d'etre is hospitality - you can't hire somebody with all the right skills and the wrong attitude. Attitude can't really be trained, skills can. If you start with a person who doesn't understand some of the processes in the restaurant but possesses an attitude focused naturally on helping people, you'll beat the other guy everytime. It's something we believe and try to live here as well.