Guidara: Unreasonable Hospitality

The techniques that Spanish chef Ferran Adrià pioneered at El Bulli introduced molecular gastronomy to the world.

René Redzepi championed foraged and wild-caught foods from the land and water surrounding his Copenhagen restaurant Noma, and a local food movement was born. And if you’ve eaten out or walked down the aisles of your local grocery in the last ten years, you’ve felt the impact those innovations have had on my industry and beyond. These chefs had the courage to make something no one had made before, and to introduce elements that changed the game for everyone.

“Service is black and white; hospitality is color.”

we got to number one by going Technicolor—by offering hospitality so bespoke, so over the top, it can be described only as unreasonable.

Choose to join people as they celebrate the most joyful moments in their lives and stand up to the chance to offer them a brief moment of consolation and relief in the midst of their most difficult ones.

Most importantly, we have an opportunity—a responsibility—to make magic in a world that desperately needs more of it.

If I know your comp plan I can basically pay your bonus. If you need to have the toilet spotless after every guest uses it, and I care about you, I will clean it after I use it. If I know you have to clean dishes, I will help, etc.

That story and many others like it circulated through the company. They primed every one of us to seek out new ways to make our guests’ experiences a little more seamless, relaxing, and delightful. And so, the first time a guest mentioned she was going to have to get up, midmeal, to feed the meter a few blocks away, it was natural for us to offer to do that for her.

Eventually, that gesture became one of our steps of service. The host would ask guests, “How’d you get here tonight?” If they responded, “Oh, we drove,” he’d follow up with, “Cool! Where’d you park?” If they told him they were by a meter on the street, he asked which car was theirs so one of us could run out and drop a couple of quarters into the box while they were dining.

This gesture was the definition of a grace note, a sweet but nonessential addition to your experience. It was an act of hospitality that didn’t even take place within the walls of the restaurant! But this simple gift—worth fifty cents—blew people’s minds.

‘Be the swan” reminded us that all the guest should see was a gracefully curved neck and meticulous white feathers sailing across the pond’s surface—not the webbed feet, churning furiously below, driving the glide

My favorite was “Make the charitable assumption,” a reminder to assume the best of people, even when (or perhaps especially when) they weren’t behaving particularly well. So, instead of immediately expressing disappointment with an employee who has shown up late and launching into a lecture on how they’ve let down the team, ask first, “You’re late; is everything okay?”

extend the charitable assumption to our guests as well. When someone is being difficult, it’s human nature to decide they no longer deserve your best service. But another approach is to think, “Maybe the person is being dismissive because their spouse asked for a divorce or because a loved one is ill. Maybe this person needs more love and more hospitality than anyone else in the room.”

he’d noticed that food costs at a particular restaurant were way up, and for the second month in a row. He pulled another of my reports from the pile; the restaurant was selling a lot of lobster. Yet another report: lobster prices had skyrocketed. A quick call to Ken to confirm: yup—demand had outpaced supply, and prices had gone through the roof.

A call to the chef: Were we undercharging for the dish? Definitely

Overhearing that phone call taught me that someone in corporate wielding that kind of control isn’t always unwelcome. The chef’s bonus was tied to his food costs, and if his numbers were consistently below par, he’d be out of a job. That explained the relief I’d heard in his voice when Hani told him where he’d been bleeding. Our back-office efficiency meant that guy didn’t have to worry about the numbers and could go back to being a chef. We weren’t stealing his creativity; we were returning him to it.

Meg and I found a compromise we could both live with: she'd keep using expensive ingredients, and we'd stop topping up the cases an hour or so before we closed-instead, we'd make all the salads and sandwiches on the menu to order for people who came in during that final hour. The labor costs were more than offset by what we saved on wasted food

Manage 95 percent of your business down to the penny; spend the last 5 percent "foolishly." It sounds irresponsible; in fact, it's anything but. Because that last 5 percent has an outsize impact on the guest experience, it's some of the smartest money you'll ever spend.

The Rule of 95/5 would turn out to be one of my central operating principles at Eleven Madison Park. Wine pairings a taste of wine to accompany each course in a tasting menu-are common in fine dining.

And, as with everything, there was a budget for what we could spend on those pairings. But instead of splitting that budget evenly across all the wines we served, I'd ask our sommeliers to select slightly less expensive wines for the majority of the courses then, at the end, we could splurge on one special, rare, and more expensive glass.

If you love wine, it's always exciting to drink Grand Cru Burgundy. But the chance to do so almost never happens during ordinary wine pairings— so imagine how excited our guests were when it did! The Rule of 95/5 gave us the ability to surprise and delight everyone that ordered those pairings, making it an experience they would never forget.

Laura is relentlessly can-do, a brilliant problem-solver, and a tireless advocate for the people who work for her, which is why I'm never happier than when she's next to me, whispering in my ear. It's Laura who tells me when a staff member needs a little TLC, when I'm being too intense, and when my attention is on the wrong thing. She's the one who taps my shoulder and says, "Hey, this needs a little finessing," or "You gotta chill out a little bit." (If it isn't already clear, I think every leader should have a Laura someone who feels comfortable telling you when you aren't acting as the best version of yourself.)

Some of the best advice I ever got about starting in a new organization is: Don't cannonball. Ease into the pool. I've passed this advice on to those joining my own: no matter how talented you are, or how much you have to add, give yourself time to understand the organization before you try to impact it.

Criticize the behavior, not the person.

Praise with emotion, criticize without emotion.

Many of these confrontations could be avoided with early corrections-like pulling that guy with the wrinkled shirt aside on day one to say: "Hey! Good to see you this morning. That shirt's looking a little rough; why don't you head upstairs and give it a once-over with the iron before we sit down for family meal?" You have to make your expectations clear. And your team can't be excellent if you're not holding them accountable to the standards you've set. You normalize these corrections by making them swiftly, whenever they're needed. And make those corrections in private.

Communicating consistent standards, with lots of repetition, was important; a good manager makes sure everyone knows what they have to do, then makes sure they've done it-that's the black-and-white part of being a leader. But a huge part of leadership is taking the time to tell your team why they're doing what they're doing, and I used the daily 30 min pre-meal meeting to get into that why.

When EMP was up and running, I felt confident that the entire team had my back—literally. Let's say I was clearing a table and a guest started to engage me in conversation. It's gross to stand there chatting with an armful of dirty dishes, yet I never wanted to squander an opportunity to connect with a guest. So I'd tuck the dishes behind my back, knowing that no matter how badly my wrists strained, in a second or two, one of my colleagues would notice and be on their way to grab them from me.

Interesting

Three or four times, I hired someone I thought showed promise. But they'd last only a month before the flame of their enthusiasm dimmed and died, and then they'd quit. So the next time a position opened up, I didn't race to fill it. Instead, I waited until another position came open, and then another, and then hired three great people, all at the same time. Instead of one new person cupping their hands, trying to protect the tiny flame of their enthusiasm, that little crew brought a bonfire no one could put out. In the years to come, I would tell every group at their new-hire meeting, "You are part of a class, just as if you were starting college. Lean on one another; support one another." But the first time I ever gave that speech, it was to those three. I wanted them to know that if they approached their shared experience as a team, the impact they could have on the restaurant would be profound.

Over the next month or two, I worked with the team to create a list of the words that came up over and over again when critics and other musicians talked about Miles:

Cool, Endless Reinvention, Inspired, Forward Moving, Fresh, Collaborative, Spontaneous

Vibrant, Adventurous, Light, Innovative

These resonated with us and became a road map of sorts. We printed a large sign with those words underneath our logo and hung it in our kitchen. That sign became a touchstone, a guiding light, a way to hold ourselves accountable.

I've had bad days and weeks like everyone else, but I've always been able to say, "I can't imagine doing anything else," because I've always been able to tap into what's important about my job. I genuinely believe that in restaurants we can give people a break from reality even just for a short time and, as cheesy as it sounds, that we can make the world a better place. Because when you're really, really nice to people, they'll be really nice to others, who will in turn pay it forward. That energizes me, even when I'm depleted.

When we saw what a tremendous success we were having with the beverage programs, our management team came up with a list of every aspect of the restaurant that could benefit from some attention, including linens, side work, and educational training. These were less shiny, but they would make a real difference in the experience of those who worked there, and on our bottom line. These were things people could take ownership of as a project. (On a volunteer basis)

An example: the guy who took over CGS (which stands for "china, glass, and silver"- sexy as it gets, right?) dedicated himself to reducing breakage. He discovered the racks in the dish room were half an inch too short, so the stems poked up above the top when the glasses went through the dishwasher. A couple of new glass racks later, and he'd eliminated loss by 30 percent. That's serious money, and a major morale booster, as it also meant that we no longer ran out of water glasses in the middle of service.

I'm not going to lie: it's much easier to not share ownership at least to start. (This is the "It's quicker to do it myself" problem.) But refusing to delegate because it might take too long to train someone will only get in the way of your own growth.

At the beginning, the young people running these ownership programs did require tons of oversight and encouragement and advice. Mentoring them was a lot of work. And there were bumps in the road. Yes, we'd set up guardrails so Kirk couldn't lose a million bucks in beer, but a kid right out of hotel school is naturally going to make more mistakes than someone with ten years of experience running a beverage program.

And while it does take more time to fix someone else's mistake than to do it yourself in the first place, these are short-term investments of time with long-term gains.

A onetime presentation was much less of an obligation than taking over an ownership program-and it was fun, because the people who worked for us loved food and wine. Whether they'd had a lightbulb moment with a glass of Burgundy at a wine bar and wanted to know more about the history of the region or had finally tasted a sherry that wasn't like sneaking a sip at their grandmother's bridge game, we wanted to hear it.

We hired you for a reason. We know you have something to contribute, and we don’t want to wait to see what it is.

If your job was to place that dish in front of the guest, you were the last link in a long chain of people who had invested many hours of work in that dish. If, in that final inch, a zucchini flower tumbled because of your carelessness, you were letting a lot of people down-including the guest, who'd trusted you with a few hours of their life in the expectation that you would blow their minds.

Unfortunately, it's common for people to lose focus in that last inch, compromising all the work they and their teams have done to get where they are. This isn't specific to restaurants, though there are thousands of restaurant-specific examples I can think of-failing to take a minute to make sure that the final settings on your lighting and music are correct before you open, for instance, or neglecting to walk guests to the door at the end of their meal so you can deliver a personal goodbye.

For the team at EMP, the One-Inch Rule was both a literal instruction to put the plates down gently and a metaphorical one, a reminder to stay present and to follow through all the way to that last inch, no matter what you might be doing.

Learn their tough love language for when the only time a message will get through is confrontation in the extreme

"I keep telling him that he can't continue doing this," my friend complained, exasperated. "But I found out Friday that he's gone and done it again. I don't seem to be getting through to him."

"Have you tried yelling at him?" I asked.

Some people need to be corrected privately without emotion, as soon as possible
Some people require thought so you don’t step on anything sensitive. Spend time with them after delivering the feedback so you can sit with them and let them know they’re loved.
Some people won’t hear what you’re saying unless it comes with a little thunder. They won’t believe conversational feedback is serious, so you’ll have to get into it a bit. Even this kind of reproach needs to be delivered privately and without emotion. Voice loud but words measured. You're still criticizing the behavior, not the person, and a raised voice doesn't mean losing control and raging. It's simply a different tough-love language, one that's louder and sterner than the one you naturally prefer.

Culture:

External expertise - Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, and Patrick O'Connell of the Inn at Little Washington ended up coming in for dinner a week later. It's impossible to overstate the impact this trio sitting at table 74 had on the staff.
The two of us had made an effort to bring that excitement back to the staff. If we got good press, I read the article out loud at pre-meal; if a guest sent a gushing email or if another restaurateur paid us a compliment, I read the emails.
As EMP started getting more and more press, I made sure to turn the spotlight on those who deserved it, making them the stars of the show. If a PR person reached out about our beer program, I put them in touch with Kirk Kelewae, the guy who ran it, and made sure it was Kirk's name that appeared in the subsequent article. Not only did this ensure Kirk was getting the credit he so richly deserved, but it got everyone else on the team thinking, Wait a minute! I want that kind of recognition, too.
when external affirmation comes, direct it to the people responsible. If a distributor compliments you on always getting your orders in on time, ask them to say it again once you've gotten the person responsible on the phone. If an investor notes that the reports you send are always timely and detailed and clear, grab the accountant who puts those reports together and pull them into the meeting so they can bask in the praise.

A seemingly small but extraordinarily significant idea, one that changed our culture: if you made eye contact with a colleague and touched your lapel, it meant "I need help." This is now used in restaurants around the country.

The recession also had a real adverse impact on check averages. People were just ordering less stuff, and the things they were ordering were less expensive. We obviously couldn't raise prices, so we needed to get creative about how to offset the decrease. This is where things got really fun.

When I was a waiter at Tribeca Grill, the rule about delivering dessert was "low and slow"-when walking across the restaurant to deliver desserts to a table, walk more slowly than you ordinarily would as you pass the other tables along the way. And keep that applesauce cake at the guests' eye level, so that by the time you come around with dessert menus, everyone's already been thinking about it. (This is why sugary cereals are always stocked on the lower shelves at the supermarket—it puts them at eye level for kids.)

we introduced a dessert trolley—a cart stacked with delicious pies and cakes and tarts—that we could push right over to the table. Most of the time, when you offer people a dessert menu at lunch, they look at you like you're an alien. It's partly calories, but mostly no one has time to go through the whole rigmarole of ordering a dessert, then waiting for it to be plated and brought out and eaten and cleared before they can get the check. Roll up to their table with a dessert cart, though, and they turn into wide-eyed little kids struggling to choose their treat especially because they know they can have the one they point at, right away. The cart was beautiful and experiential, and people loved it. Dessert sales went up by 300 percent.

We found events to add revenue. The Kentucky Derby was a party we could knock out of the park. We decorated the room with horse-shaped topiaries, garlanded with roses as if they'd made it to the Winners Circle. The sumptuous buffet featured traditional Southern foods: Benedictine ten sandwiches, fried chicken and waffles, and the meaty braise called Kentucky Burgoo.

People love to dress up when they don't have to, and our guests did not disappoint. We added new audiences - southerners, horse people, hat lovers, and cigar aficionados were suddenly on love with EMP.

When you're going for four stars, you're aiming for perfection, so we did everything in our power to make Frank Bruni’s experience perfect even when he wasn't there. Because every night that Bruni wasn't in the restaurant, which was most of them that year, we designated one random table as the Critic of the Night and used those tables as a dress rehearsal. These make-believe critics ate at our best table. They were served by our best team and advised on their wine choices by our wine director.

When it came time to reset the table for their next course, we didn't pull forks out of a drawer, no matter how meticulously those had been polished before service-no, there was a separate box of silverware set aside, every piece of which had been checked and buffed by a manager. Re-polished glasses sat on a separate tray, and every plate for that table was scrutinized for chips and smudges. The kitchen fired doubles of every dish that the Critic of the Night's table ordered, just as they would when the real critic was in the house, so Daniel could send out whichever one had been ever-so-slightly more perfectly cooked. We assigned our two best food runners to take the food out—two, because you don't want a critic to see the same person over and over again and suspect that you're hand-selecting the people delivering the food to them (which, of course, we were).

when guests walked through our doors, instead of having to approach someone who was looking at a screen, they'd be welcomed by name: "Good evening, Ms. Sun—and welcome to Eleven Madison Park." I never tired of seeing the reaction on people's faces when they experienced this for the first time. Every night, the maître d' would take the list of reservations and Google the names on it, creating a cheat sheet with photos for each seating. If your photo had ever been put on the internet, we would find it— and if you still looked anything remotely like the person in that photo, you would be greeted by name. After the seven thirty reservations were seated, the maître d' would start studying the cheat sheet for the eight o'clock reservations.

There was an anchor at a podium around the corner who would sign to the maitre d’ if the reserved table was ready or not, and if not, would usher the guest to the bar for a drink while they waited. The maitre d’ was also the person who had confirmed your reservation two days earlier on the phone, where they started building the relationship and learning about the occasion (birthday, etc.)

JP reorganized the regular coat-check room to sort the coats by table number and added an additional, smaller coat check—the "on-deck" coat check—by the door.

During service, a host periodically passed through the dining room, taking note of where people were in their meals so they could plan where they were going to seat the next group of reservations. With our new system, when the host spotted a table paying their check, they'd send someone to transfer the coats from the big coatroom to the on-deck coatroom. By the time the table had finished paying and was heading to the front of the restaurant, we'd be standing by the front door with their coats. No one was doing this then; very few restaurants do it now. Which is a shame, because it was one of my favorite moments of the night. You'd watch guests approaching the door start to hunt in their pockets or bags for their coat check tags—where did I put that? Then they'd look up and recognize their own coat. It was amazing to pull off a magic trick right at the end, blowing the guests' minds one last time; I never got tired of seeing it.

Make everyone a VIP - We created a nook in our kitchen with an expansive view of the thirty precision-trained cooks working with laser focus and in near silence in our immaculate kitchen and put a chef's table in that nook. But our chef's table had no chairs; our guests stood while enjoying a single course. Because it was only a single course, we could offer that special experience to lots of people everyone who showed interest in experiencing it. (This course was neutral-never a dessert-so it could happen at any point in the meal; the first one we did was a liquid nitrogen cocktail.) We even hired someone whose only job was to give those tours. Not everyone wanted to see the kitchen; some people had come to the restaurant to negotiate a deal, or to stare passionately into each other's eyes, or simply to eat-and the staff was tuned in enough to leave those folks alone. But for everyone else-whether you were Jay-Z and Beyoncé, or a couple who had saved up so you could experience a four-star restaurant for the first time, the experience was yours to have.

True hospitality is one off. The key word is improvise. When you do these things people will inevitably describe the experience as “legendary”

Spago covertly asked a regular who ate 5x a week (who was tall)’s wife to send pictures of his favorite chair at home, and they had a large chair upholstered like his at home.
Guidara heard a table of europeans on their way to the airport say “we’ve eaten everywhere, EMP, per se, etc., the only thing we didn’t try was a street hot dog” and guidara went to a cart, bought a hot dog, had the kitchen plate it, and blew their mind.
World class: When a table spent the better part of their meal talking about a movie they'd loved and forgotten about, we dropped off a DVD of it (remember those?) with their check. A couple celebrating an anniversary mentioned they were staying at a nearby hotel; we made sure there was a bottle of champagne waiting for them in their room when they got back, along with a handwritten note thanking them for trusting us with such an important occasion. A four-top of parents debating the ethics of the Tooth Fairy found a quarter under their folded napkins every time one of them returned from the bathroom. We finished a meal for someone who told us they loved Manhattans with a flight of variations on that cocktail-the Perfect Manhattan, so-called not because it improves on the original but because it uses equal amounts of both sweet and dry vermouths; the Brooklyn, made with the French aperitif Amer Picon; the Distrito Federal, which substitutes aged tequila for the bourbon.
In the years to come, Emily and the team would paint a pastoral scene, complete with cows and ducks, so a visiting chef known for hunting much of the protein at his restaurant could choose his entrée by shooting it with a Nerf gun during his kitchen tour.
A captain overheard one of our out-of-town regulars regretting he hadn't gotten his daughter a stuffed animal as he'd promised, so Emily fashioned a perfect one out of kitchen towels.
We were already Googling guests so we could greet them by name. That preliminary research became an important pipeline. A gentleman coming in for his birthday had a popular Instagram account devoted to his love of bacon; I asked the pastry chef to create a bacon granola for him instead of our customary coconut-pistachio.
One night, a banker hustling to fund a new company teased his captain: sure, an after-dinner drink would be great, but what he really needed was a million dollars to finish his raise. Alas, our budget only stretched to a bag filled with ten 100 Grand chocolate bars, which we tucked under his chair.

There isn't a group of people standing around behind the scenes at a busy restaurant twiddling their thumbs and waiting for an errand to run, and we certainly couldn't risk compromising the impeccable service we were known for by pulling necessary people off the floor.

If we were going to commit to this, we needed to create a position.

When he was done laughing, he told us his night at the restaurant had been "legendary." I told the story in pre-meal, and the term "Legend" became shorthand within the restaurant for these special touches— as in, "I did the best Legend for a table last night."

Legends put you right back in the moment, so you’re not just recounting the experience, but reliving it.

The first year our creative directoy didn't go home for the holiday, her parents came to New York to surprise her; we hid them in the walk-in. When the family had reunited and returned to their table, they found a snowy, holiday-themed train on a tiny track and a pile of beautifully wrapped gifts. This was our caviar course with everything balanced on top of the train cars, and a tin of caviar and all the trimmings hidden in the presents beneath the wrapping and bows. Over the top? You bet. Not only did we want our people to come in for dinner; we wanted them to have a better experience than anyone else in the room. It was a way to say thank you for all that the team gave us-their creativity, good humor, and hard work. But it was also to show them the same graciousness they delivered every day. What better way to get fired up about giving Unreasonable Hospitality than to spend an evening receiving it? I often wonder why more companies don't invest in their own people this way. Major banks have private wealth managers, who deliver a heightened level of service to their wealthiest clients. How much would it cost to give every teller a similarly attentive private banking experience? Wouldn't that make sense from a retention standpoint? And perhaps more important, how can you even quantify the improvement in the kind of service someone will deliver to their customers when they have themselves received the very best the bank has to offer?

Identify moments that recur in your business, and build a tool kit your team can deploy without too much effort. Brainstorm materials it would be useful to have on hand, organize those materials on-site so that staff can readily access them, and empower the people who work for you to use them. Do that, and you've systemized improvisational hospitality.

We had done this for years at EMP with what we called the Plus One cards. (We did these for so long I genuinely can't remember if we started them or if they predated me.) Plus One cards were answers to questions we were frequently asked-Who does your floral arrangements? Can you tell me more about the farm that made this cheese?-handwritten on simple index cards we kept in a card catalog box in the back. If a server saw a guest flip a plate to see who'd made it, they brought the card that explained who Jono Pandolfi was and where you could see more of his work.
Since people visiting from out of town often asked about our own favorite haunts in the city, we printed little maps, marked with some of our secret spots: the best pizza slice, the best bagel, the best place to get Sunday brunch, along with lesser-known New York City treasures like the Rubin Museum. We bought tickets to the observation deck of the Empire State Building we could give out to tourists who were super excited to be in New York. (I know tons of born-and-bred New Yorkers who have never gone up there because it seems cheesy—but they’re surprised at how amazing it is.
when a couple got engaged at the restaurant, we would pour them complimentary glasses of champagne in crystal flutes I'd partnered with Tiffany to provide. At the end of their meal, we'd send the couple home with a gift box in that iconic robin's-egg blue, containing the glasses they'd used for their engagement toast. The partnership was an easy win for Tiffany; I guarantee most of those couples put a full set of flutes onto their registries.
One afternoon, a table laughed with their captain about overdoing it with the wine and wished out loud that instead of going back to the office, they could head home for a tipsy nap. Anyone who made a similar joke had a morning rescue kit waiting with a bag of strong ground coffee, some Alka-Seltzer tablets, and a muffin-for the captains to hand out whenever a guest anticipated their hangover out loud.
Guests on the way to the airport had a box of airplane snacks that were nice.

Preparing for these moments in advance means your staff doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel every night, just listen and make it happen.

99% of agents at the realty firm gave “a bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge” but spent hours with clients hearing their hopes and dreams for the house.

Not expensive, necessarily, but personalized. That hot dog cost two dollars, but there was probably only one table in the history of the restaurant that I could have presented it to. People often confuse hospitality with luxury, but I could have given that table a bottle of vintage Krug and a kilo of caviar, and it wouldn't have had anywhere near the same impact. Luxury means just giving more; hospitality means being more thoughtful.

So: if your buyer is into music, leave them their favorite album on vinyl-and, depending on the size of your commission, spring for a turntable as well. If a client dreamed out loud about doing yoga in that nook off the hallway with the sunlight streaming through, then buy a mat and roll it out there, so it's the first thing to greet them when they walk into their new home.
Many good businesspeople make these gestures instinctively. A real estate agent I spoke to told me about a Legend she'd pulled, long before she knew the term. Since she knew the new owners were planning a gut renovation, she got permission to remove the doorjamb where her client, the seller, had marked her kids' heights every year as they grew. To anyone else, it would have been a worthless piece of splintered wood, headed for the dumpster—but not to her client, who wept when she realized what it was. (Total cost: $0.)
If you're selling an apartment to a couple having a baby, get a pack of those protective plastic outlet covers and leave them in a drawer with a little note: "You've got big adventures coming up, so I took this off your to-do list." And because so many people move when they find out they're expecting, keep a case of those outlet covers in your office so you don't have to scramble.
For newcomers to the area you specialize in, put together a guidebook of all your favorite spots— the best stroll, the best rigorous hike, the best apple cider donut. Print a dozen at a time.
Another agent I spoke with mentioned she'd sold eight pied-à-terres to suburban empty nesters in a single year. Do those people want yet another basic bottle of sparkling wine, available at every corner liquor store? Or would they prefer a behind-the-scenes tour of the art restoration facilities at the Met? Or tickets to the Village Vanguard? Or a membership to an art house movie theater in Brooklyn?
Leave a Chemex coffeepot, with a box of filters and a bag of locally roasted ground coffee because that's what people really need on their first morning in a new house before they've found the moving box with the espresso machine in it. I guarantee they'll think of you and your thoughtfulness every time they use it. (Recurring items are a huge plus, like the rice cooker from Japan Nalin gave me)

Think about customers doing X at a specific point in their lives.

If they’re buying a car for their teenager - “Look, I know what it's like to have a newly licensed teenager on the road, so I got Frankie a year of Triple A. That way you know she's not going to get stranded out there." A Triple A membership costs $119 at the time of this writing a hundred and nineteen dollars that pretty much guarantees those parents will never buy a car from anyone else.
imagine the look a harried dad, struggling to install a booster seat, would give you if you sent him off your lot with a bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, so his toddler doesn't get hangry on the way home and a little DustBuster vacuum, so Dad can vacuum up all those orange crumbs and keep his brand-new car looking brand-new?
If you talked about getting into surfing - a can of surf wax on the dash with a bow and a note.

Talk about opportunities - “We were approached”

even the most flawless and collaborative organization needs a boss. Discussion and input are wonderful, but somebody needs to be on site to make decisions. If there's nobody to make the call, problems pile up: forward progress stalls completely, or random people step into the breach, take responsibility for a decision, and then face resentment from their peers

After my private meeting with Kirk, I called an all-staff meeting and apologized to everyone in the room. "This is the first time I've grown a company," I told them, "and this isn't the last mistake I'm going to make. But this was a big one." I had withheld the trust I'd been after them for years to show one another, and I'd damaged the culture we'd worked so hard to grow as a result. After I apologized, I announced that Kirk would be their new GM. There is such power when a leader can admit to their mistakes and apologize for them. Holding yourself accountable publicly strengthens the bond between you and your team, because if you're willing to stand up and criticize yourself, people will always be more willing to receive criticism from you.

Throughout the years that we were climbing through the ranks of the 50 Best list, Daniel and I were traveling to food and wine conferences and culinary events all over the world. And any time we went to a new city, we'd take a night to go see what our competition was up to. We found ourselves deeply inspired…

A magic trick is an easy way to add magic

Create a card choice for the main ingredient of your dessert (chocolate or vanilla or caramel), and hide a small chocolate appetizer somewhere on the table to reveal to them after their choice.

My jaw dropped. “That’s incredible! But how would we do it?” Dan shook his head. "Oh, I have no idea. We'll have to figure it out." I loved that - how unfazed he was to not know and how confident he was that we'd figure it out.

Teller: "Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect."