Danny Meyer: Recipes for Success

He opened his first restaurant, Union Square Cafe, one of my favorites back when he was just so Danny and I actually decided to meet at the new Union Square Cafe. When I got there, the place was jam packed full of diners enjoying late lunches, a few cocktails, Hey it's five o'clock somewhere, maybe a bit of espresso, all served on crisp white table cloths. There were even gingerbread houses

by the entrance. We headed upstairs, then to a private dining room for our interview, and yes, a little taglia telly, is that how you say it? Our conversation covered a lot of ground, including Danny's famous approach to hospitality, why he's banned tipping at some of his restaurants, and how he gave birth to this new version of Union Square Cafe.

We called this our thirty year old startup because the original Union Square Cafe had to close after three years because we couldn't re up our lease in the original spot on Street and we were just incredibly lucky to find a space within a stone's throw of Union Square and we reopened it a year ago. And this is

our birthday, and well, happy birthday, Union Square. And let's talk of out the restaurant business, because you know so many restaurants open and closed, Danny, and so many people want to do this for a living, and you've done it so successfully. Tell me what the key is to a fantastic restaurant that stands the test of time. I'm not trying to be falsely humble, but if I really knew the answer to that, we would have opened a whole lot more restaurants over the course of thirty plus years. Well,

you've opened a lot, we have. And if if you take out shake Shack, which will open its in the United States this weekend in my hometown of St. Louis, which I'm excited about the fine dining, full service restaurants we have about We have about ten at this point, so that's that's a lot. It's about one every three years, but especially when you consider that I didn't open a second one Grammercy tavern until ten years, so it took ten years to open a second restaurant. This year alone,

we've opened five new restaurants. So the learning curve was was steep and slow. And can we just interrupt this podcast because somebody just brought in a little bowl of pasta for me and I haven't eaten lunch, so I'm very excited. I'm not going to be here at a Danny Meyer restaurant. No, I'm not gonna have any wine,

thanks Danny. Danny just did the wine sign. I think that I want to kind of keep my wits about me and not get too woozy while we're going to hear a lot of happy clanging and slurping as tell me what I'm eating. Because listeners, I wish you all could smell through your smartphones because or however you're listening to with amazing mushrooms and it's it's it's kind of a good illustration of what Union Square cafe is which

is nothing fancy or formal. And there's a great Italian word which we first learned about from a hero of mine, Seth Godin, and he coined this, or he coined this about Union Square Cafe. The Italian terms spritsa and spreads a tora was a term used to describe a painting style in the fiftundreds in Italy, and what it meant was that the technique that it took to make those paintings came across as being quite simple, and yet it

was actually pretty hard to put together. And he he uses the word to describe Union Square Cafe as well as what you're eating right now, the food spreta. There are so many restaurants and businesses that do the opposite, where they make a big scene, like, look at all the effort we put into this thing, and then you eat it and you go, I'd rather just have had

a good bowl apasta somewhere. And so what he's saying with sprits a tour is what if you could make something that comes across as being simple, but it's actually just really really satisfying. That's what we try to do here. Well, I have to say it's working for me, Danny. And what is it? What's the word again, Spreta, This is

really Sprea baby and enjoy. I also want to say that that we got so into thinking about that when we were reopening Union Square Cafe, that I took our leaders on a trip to all the places in Italy that had first inspired me when I was in my twenties. And we did that a little over a year ago, and we decided that we're going to bake our own bread here, which we weren't able to do with the first one, and we call our house bread. We call it spreads, and you're going to taste some of that today.

I'm excited to do that. Well, this is delicious, and I don't want to talk with my mouthful, but I'm going to have to. You know, you talk about Italy, and I know you spent a year studying abroad. You went to Trinity, the alma mater. My husband, John Mulner, go Trinity Tigers right now, bantoms Bantom's John Muhlner, But make sure not sorry. My daughter went to Trinity High

School and I think they're the Tigers. But anyway, you spent your junior year in Rome, and is that where you first became inspired to really become a restaurant tour I know your dad inspired you as well, and we'll talk about him and a moment, But what did the Rome experience mean to you and do for you? I had spent time in Rome working for my dad as a tour guide when I was twenty and I was responsible for picking up the group tours at the airport

in the morning. They'd be all cranky and jet lagged, and I found that I'd be with these people for four to six days, depending on what the tour was, And I had this crazy neurotic wiring where it mattered to me deeply to take the crankiest person from day one and turn them into the happiest person by the end of the trip. So all the tour itinerary said today,

we're going to go to the Cameo factory. Tomorrow we're going to go to the So and So Museum, and I just kept taking the tours to my favorite trotterias around town, factories, well, the cameo factories. It's actually basically it's an opportunity for guys to get kickbacks from the cameo factory while you get this thing that you're going to put in a drawer and forget about for the next rest of your life. That Danny, So I decided, if it's okay for guides to be getting commissions, why

not do it at Trotaria. So I was getting paid a thousand lira per head of every tour guest that I would bring into these restaurants, and it was completely legal. Um what was not legal was these people would come home and they would rave about the trip, and my dad's office would say, well, what did you love about it? And nothing they were raving about was on the itinerary he had sold them. So I almost lost my job. That's so funny. Anyway, after that, I went back studied

Italian at Trinity College. Loved it, and Trinity has a campus in Rome, and we convinced our political science professor to do a special international politics class at Trinity, and so we studied Italian politics, study European politics. Yes we studied Italian and yes I studied Trotarias. Why did you go into policy, s Danny, if you were there studying international Well after I graduated from Trinity, I wanted to be either you when I grew up um, and I

went to go look at journalism schools. I actually got a job at the NBC affiliate in Chicago right out of college, really working as a production assistant for the Sunday Morning Politics show. And on the very day I got offered that job, I was offered a job as Cook County field coordinator for John Anderson's nineteen eight campaign,

John Anderson, who just passed to day and Uh. I decided I should take that job because it was a much loftier experience than I ever would have gotten with a Republican or Democratic candidate, because he had, you know, as an independent presidential candidate, he had absolutely no infrastructure whatsoever. So I got an amazing education. And then I was either going to go to law school or journalism school,

but you decided to go to neither. I decided to go to neither and start making poster for a living. That's so funny, And so why that sudden turned back into or yeah, I guess to your roots of loving Trotarias or Tritorius. How do you say that, Trotia? Why did you decide to go back into food? I'm glad you did, by because I'm really enjoying this pasta seconds. No, thank you, I'm good. I'm good, But you don't mind if I continue? Do you know? I'd be offended if

you didn't. But it's not really for me having gone back to those roots, because you have to understand we're talking. Um. I moved to New York in nineteen eighty. I my first night here was the night John Lennon was shot at the end of nineteen eighty. So not only was the city of very different city kind of a scary time here, but restaurants were not really an accepted career

choice for someone with a liberal arts education. It just was nothing that had ever occurred to me that, in addition to cooking for my friends and for myself at home, that I should actually even consider for a minute going into this business. But the word foodie haven't been invented yet, I haven't The word foodie completely didn't exist. But I would also say that the notion of a valid entrepreneurial career choice was just completely off the table at that point.

In fact, I was embarrassed and afraid and ashamed to tell my family that I might do this. Really a whole lot of other things I could have told him that they would have accepted a lot more quickly than this. I was going to say, but who has the last lap? Now? I mean, I mean, obviously you've just been extraordinarily successful, and I want to talk about sort of what you've learned in the restaurant business. You were twenty seven years old.

I should mention when you started Union Square Cafe in you were so young it where did you have to think I can do this well? One of the I think one of the great hallmarks of an entrepreneur, and you either are or your not. It's not a good thing to be an entrepreneur. It's not a bad thing not to be one. But I think entrepreneurs are they're upsided, meaning that they're just incapable of seeing the downside. My eyes just couldn't see how this could fail. I knew.

And the other thing is is that if it had failed, who would have cared? No one had heard of me, so in a weird way, the first time you do something as an entrepreneur, you only see possibility. I wasn't even thinking economically about this. I just knew it was going to work, and if it didn't, it would have been okay. With each subsequent restaurant. After that, you've got a lot more to lose because now you've got a brand you have to think about, got employees you got

to care about. I should mention before you opened Union Square Cafe, you worked at Pesca and you were an assistant manager. I was the assistant lunch manager. And that's where you met your lovely wife, Audrey, who was a waitress there. So Audrey was an actress, um, which she still is. As a matter of fact, she just text me saying she got a little role on Billions, which she's very excited about. That's excited. So UM, Audrey and

I met on my very very first day of work. Um. By the way, my interview at Pesca consisted of the owner looking me up and down for six seconds and saying you'll do that was my job interview. So on my very first day of work, I'm running down the steps to the reservation office because that was my first job, to take lunch reservations, and this beautiful woman was running up the stairs with a tray of butters that she had prepared for lunch, and we literally locked eyes on

the stairway. It was like, you know, for about three seconds, she continued up. I continued down. I came home at night and I said, I'm gonna like this job. The next day she was gone, and I didn't even know how to ask, like I started looking at I didn't want to what happened to the lady with the butter right, So I started looking at the schedules surreptitiously. She's not on the schedule for the following week, or for the

week after, or for the week after. I finally learned as I got to know people that she had gotten a role in Guys and Dolls. I think it was in Indiana, if I'm not mistaken. And so she was gone. That was it. About five months later, I'm answering the telephones and there's Audrey and calling to see if she can get back on the schedule, and I said, yeah, I can probably help arrange that for you. So we kind of flirted for another five months after that. She

had a boyfriend I learned about that. We finally had our first date on my last night of work before I was going off to Italy and Francigo Cook and we've been married now for it. We'll have our thirtieth anniversary this year. That's so great four kids, four kids? Yeah, wow, and what's what's what do you think the secret to being having a good marriage for that many years is Danny? Because you know you're busy. I'm sure that it's hard with your schedule, her schedule. I'm sure you meet a

lot of beautiful, glamorous people. I'm sure Autrey does too, by the way, in her line of work, kissing people on stage and two of her last place that's were you like, wait a minute, why I was more than that. In fact, once I went with my son and he like buried his head into my under arm during the scene. What kind of kissed was it? By the way, I was just handed another bowl of pasta. Do you all think I'm running a marathon or something that I'm part loading?

That one? You definitely want to try that. That spreads a tour right there? That is Explain this. Explain this? What does it look like? It looks like spaghetti with Marinara sauce. That's it? Can you hear me? And spinning my spaghetti on my fork? Everyone like we have these sound effects. I remember the old days on the Today Show. You would take a of this and then the camera would focus in and you go, Oh my god, that's so good. You know, I used to hate when people

would show me eating. This is the beauty of doing a podcast. Mm hmmm mmmmmmmm. That's delicious. I'm telling you all. She's smiling right now. I'm really really good. I don't think I'm gonna eat the whole bowl. I should share with my producer Gianna. It's only right, right. But you're asking, what do I think the secret is? I I don't know.

I saw a great interview recently with a couple that have been married sixty years, twice as long as Audrey and I have been married, and the uh, the wife had the best answer to that question, and I can't beat it. She said. The secrets very simple. I just always let him have my way. That's funny, and I pretty much always let Audrey have her way. Now we understand, there's there's a great moment in our marriage that was not fun at the time, but it was a good one.

Audrey's got a remarkable design sense, just really good taste, and we had just renovated a new apartment. This is probably fifteen years ago or sixteen years ago. I made the mistake of coming home from the restaurant one night, and Audrey had bought these new soap dishes for our beautiful new bathroom. And I made a face at the soap dish and I said, are those are soap dishes?

And Audrey just looked at me with eyes that could kill, and she said, may I just remind you that this is not one of your restaurants, and I'm not one of your employees. And I feel like I learned a really important division of labor at that point, which is that there's a lot to do at home. It's really hard work. Um, she's an incredible mom. She's incredible at, you know, balancing an acting career and keeping things moving in the house, which I couldn't do. I just don't

know how to do that. So a big part of it is stay away from the stuff in eight years and taken care bit. And I think women, probably and some men who are listening to this probably really appreciate your saying that, because I think oftentimes that kind of work, which is really being CEO of a household, is really undervalued and you don't get a day off. That's true,

you know. Today, for example, before she went back for another audition, she was prepping one of our daughters to have her wisdom teeth out on the phone for an hour with another daughter who just fell down the steps of Trinity College and sprained her ankle, taking our dog in to the to the vet to have some kind of procedure, right, And I'm sitting here getting to talk to Katie Kirk. So I'm not sure who has a better deal on that. But let's talk about your philosophy

of the difference between service and hospitality. And I think this is so important, and you also talk about in your book I know that you wrote in two thousand six called Setting the Table the Intersection of Leadership and hospitality. When you say hospitality, what does that mean to you? And how does that how can that apply to all of us and how we live our daily lives. Well, I love the word. It's a complicated word, it turns out. But I learned a lot about this word in an

odd way. Union Square Cafe, which at that time was seven years old, won the James Beard Award, the national award for outstanding service in America, and amongst other reasons, I felt like a complete impostor picking up that award because we had always been taught that not only was service everything, but waiters are in tuxedos and there making your pasta table side and all that kind of fancy stuff that we just never did. And I was like,

how did we win that award? And then two years later, the Zagat survey comes out and Union Square Cafe had the tenth best survey service in New York, the twelve best food in New York, and the sixty best decor, and yet it was New York's third favorite restaurant that year. And I said, what are we doing that's making people react in a way that's greater than some of our parts. And I started thinking about this word hospitality and how

it didn't exactly say the same thing as service. And I started looking into the word, and the word hospitality starts with s T, which on one hand it means guest, and on the other hand it means host, and on another hand it even means stranger, and on another hand it even means enemy. And so you go, how do I fit together guest, host, stranger enemy? Why are we talking about two sides of a coin? Why is that the root of everything from hospital or hospice or hotel

but also the root of the word hostility. So I did a bunch of research on this, and nowhere in there was there anything that had to do with service. And so the two things that came out of it for me were when people were law our service, what they didn't know is that they were truly lauding our hospitality. The service is nothing more than a way to describe the technical delivery of the product. Did we spill on you or not, did we get the right food to

the right person at the right temperature or not. Did we get your coat back or did we lose your coat? Those are all matters of service. Hospitality, on the other hand, has everything to do with how did we make you feel while we were delivering that technical service. And it hit me really hard, which is that we need to know what hospitality is. We need to understand that that's one of our core competencies, caring how people feel. It kind of went back to my early days as a

tour guide. So it's what we think about, It's what we think about in all of our restaurants all the time. And then how does it impact life. I just think that especially in these years subsequent to having the Internet, which means that there are no secrets under the under the sun anymore. It used to be that you could be someone's favorite restaurant because you made roast chicken better than anybody else. But as soon as as soon as

we got the Internet, the word got out immediately. Then you get pictures, you get tweets, you get Instagram, you get instant ability to plagiarize every good idea under the sun. But the one thing that the Internet hasn't done is to allow you to copy how someone made you feel. It's amazing to me that more businesses and more people

don't understand this. You know, you go to a store and the salesperson ignores you, You You feel demeaned and sort of dehumanized and marginalized and annoyed, and then you leave and then you have a completely different experience it at another store where someone's super helpful and nice. And you know, I just don't understand why businesses really don't don't instill these values. It seems so crazy, especially in quote unquote

service industry. Uh, you know, situations, it doesn't. And the best thing about hospitality is it doesn't cost him anymore to do it. You'll never see a line item on a p and L statement or an annual report for a public company and says, oh my god, we gotta stop being nice to people. It's costing us way too much money. We're going to take a quick break so I can finish my pasta and even lick the bowl. At this point we'll be back with more from Danny Meyer.

And now back to my conversation with the one, the Only Danny Meyer. So do you give people who work here like personality tests, because honestly, they are the ones interfacing with the customer. And I imagine if you have a a nice server or is that what you would call? Yeah, a nice server. It means and I can speak from experience and say it makes all the difference in the world. It completely does. We don't yet have a way to measure something that we call h Q hospitality quotation, but

we're working on it. We know what the six emotional skills are that are always president someone who's got a high HQ. And if you have a high HQ, like so many other things, I have no idea what my i Q is, but it doesn't really matter and I'm not better. What I'm trying to say is that, however, we got our h Q. We got it. But for me an HQ is a way to describe the degree to which it matters to you to make other people feel good. Well, I was going to say it also,

you know it comes from the top. You know, the fish smells from the head, as they say. And I think you set a tone at your restaurants of the way you want to treat people, whether it's your employees right or your customers. And so I imagine what do you do when you hear that that somebody had a surly waiter, if it's in one of our restaurants, Yeah,

I've flipped my wig. I mean I'm not I'm not happy at all if I hear that, And it means that Look, if whenever we have a guest complaint, and I've seen many of them over the course of my career, the first thing is I'm grateful that they cared enough to let us know. It's not fun if they do it in a public way, and you know, you're airing your dirty laundry on Twitter. But if they do that,

that means that they're really angry. But I'm actually grateful because it means they're holding us to the same high standard we're holding ourselves you and I'd rather if if it half the thing happened, I'd rather know about it than not. Most people are good enough to write directly.

So almost of every complaint I've ever gotten, even though it says it's about the overcooked steak or the undercooked salmon, or the over salted risotto, or the weight between the first and second course, or the you know, whatever the complaint is, it's almost never really that. It's almost always somewhere along the line, we did not make people feel like we were on their side. And at the end of the day hospitality, we forget the Latin and Italian. It comes down to two things. Did you feel like

we were on your side or not? And you can make it even simpler with one preposition for do you feel like we did something for you? Or do you feel like we did something to you? It's that simple. So when you go to a store and you feel like someone's being surly, do you think I feel like they were doing something for you. No, So if our service is good and it's the timings right and all that stuff, it still doesn't mean we did anything for you. That's what you expect services all the stuff you should

expect from us. Sometimes we fail at service, and really good hospitality can actually overcome that. And hospitality trump service. Basically, what does it do? Trump's service? Yeah, I guess. So I'm dying to ask you about a few more buckets of of things. And one, of course, I think before I ask you about shake Shack, which I'm interested in and some of our listeners are as well. Tell me about this no tipping policy. You know, I know that that's been harder to implement than you thought. Um, and

I guess, according to some people, has had mixed results. Um. So you decided to charge customers more for their food? Is that right? Eliminate tipping? Well, let's start with the last thing you said. We decided to eliminate tipping. And when you eliminate tipping, what you're basically saying is that the menu price covers all of my expenses with enough money to make a profit, right, including your employees, including

the formerly tipped employees. Because when you go to a restaurant that accepts tips, it's a bizarre, mostly American cultural thing. And we've got this packed. Our restaurant industry has had a pact with the public forever which is the menu price is going to include your food, the tablecloth, the flowers, the rent, the chefs salary, but you're going to have to pay separately for the person who brought you the food that the chef cooked that won't be included in

the price. And it's it's a system that as as we've watched, it become harder and harder and harder for really talented people to live in a city like New York and be able to pay the cost of living here, especially cooks, because they are not able to share in tips by law. And we have meanwhile seen that as manu prices have gone up year after year, Like if you looked at Union Square cafe menu prices, you'd want to eat at that restaurant every night of your life. Um,

And what is a tip? It's a multiplier of menu prices. So escalating menu prices, escalating tip percentage. Waiters are doing pretty well, although it's somewhat dead end because you can't afford as a waiter or server to take a pay cut and become a manager, which is how your career would actually advance in hospitality, because tipped employees often make more money even than managers. Do. But meanwhile cooks are making almost exactly what they were making. So we said,

enough of this, let's change the system. So you're right, it's been a challenge. It's been very challenging to get the math right because, um, you did ask. Did we just add not exactly? Some things we added more than some things we added way less than twenty Let's take a beer. Everyone knows what a beer should cost. We may not want to add to the beer, but we may be able to add to the salmon because maybe we were under charging for the salmon in the first place.

So the challenge mathematically is how do you get a price on the menu for guests who are used to sing prices that they know they're going to have to add to. How do you get people used to sing a price and figure out what would that price be minus It's really hard for people to do that without

getting whiplash just the minute they open the menu. And then how do you have enough money so that the servers who were used to getting high tips can now get an hourly wage, which approximates that how do we have enough money to pay our cooks more than they were making, And how do we have enough money to promote our starting managers so that you can actually have a career path if you're a server. So it's complicated, really really hard. Are many restaurants doing this now, Danny? Not? Really?

Are they saying, uh, he's the guinea pig and we're not doing that? Yes? Yes, by and large, that's that's the answer. I've had a huge number of people come up to me and say thanks for running through the barbed wire for the to us. And I've I've looked shown my arms. I'm not all cut up. It's not really that bad. I have no regrets at all. And um, and I wouldn't do it otherwise because I just think it's this is transparent, and I think we're we're at a point in time where tipping is now being seen

as the anachronism that it is. Let me ask you about shake Shack, because wow, why didn't I think of that? It's so huge? How many of their how many of them are there now? Um, this weekend will be opening in my hometown of St. Louis number nine seven in the US, and then there's another seventy five or so internationally at this point, So who knew? Who knew? It started? Sort of as a food cart, right, Danny, It started, well, the whole thing was kind of just completely unexpected story.

It started off as an art project. We were helping to take the lead with the restoration of Madison Square Park, and unlike Union Square Park, which has this fantastic green market, Madison Square Park didn't have an open piazza. But what it did have and what it does have are these beautiful walking paths with nineteenth century statues. And one day we said, why don't we join all these nineteenth century statues with really good contemporary art. We said, this is

our front yard. This needs to be beautiful and it needs to be safe. So we turned to the Public Art Fund, which is a wonderful organization here in New York City, and they curated. They brought in a sculptor from Thailand who came up with this crazy idea of having taxi cabs on stilts with a working hot dog cart aside, and they needed somebody to operate the hot

dog cart. He was trying to make a political statement that everyone in the world has either had to drive a taxi cab or was able to afford being driven in one. Everyone else in the world has either been able to afford to buy a hot dog or had to be the guy's selling one. So I didn't know anything about the artist, but we said we'll sign up, we'll do the hot dog cart. And we were pretty slow back in those days, up in our private dining room at eleven Madison Park, and so we said, we'll

do Chicago style hot dogs. I love them, and I figured what a great way to test out hospitality because Chicago hot dog has eight classic toppings. Katie's the person who likes everything except mustard, and Johnny's the person who likes everything except cucumbers, and could and so lo and behold. Every day we would have seventy or eighty people waiting in line. Peter Jennings covered it. Tom Brokeaw covered it. Dan Rather covered it. It was kind of like it

was just just a little hot dog cart. Nine eleven happened right after that summer. Obviously, the city went into a deep depression in every respect, and the following summer, even though the taxi cabs were down, the community begged us to bring back this hot dog cart. So we did. That was two thousand, two thousand three. They begged us to bring it back. At third year, we did, and at that point I said, this is crazy. Why don't

we turn this into a permanent thing. And so we raised the money philanthropically to build a kiosk twy twenty ft. We called it shake Shack. The deal was we would give it to the park. We would own the business. The park would become our landlords, so that a percentage of every dollar sale would go right back into the park and hopefully create a little revenue for the park. No one knew that this was going to turn into

a viable business, much less a public company. People went crazy, they did, and it was not for five years that we opened a second one, because it was never meant to be a business like this today. So that was in two thousand four. Now here we are thirteen years later, with you know, well over a hundred fifty around the world.

And I think most importantly, if you go back to the original vision, not only is Madison Square Park more beautiful and safer than ever, but that little shake Shack is now creating a million dollars in annual revenue for the park. And I just like, that's a great story, and I want to I want to do that one again. Somehow I'd like to do that too. Well. We had a lot of people sending questions that I think we're related to shake shack. So this is from someone from

your hometown sent us a voicemail. Let's listen to what the question is. Hi, I'm a former St. Louis in and no Danny Myers too. Growing up in St. Louis, eating out as steak and shake was a great treat for my brother and myself. I'm wondering how much influence the steak in shakes of St. Louis head on Danny if he developed the shape shack. It almost seems like

a dated version to me. Thank you well. The steak and Shake had a huge impact, as did fits his root Beard drive in UM, as did Ted Drew's Frozen About Ted Drew's Absolutely and Crown Candy Kitchen with their malts.

And I think the thing that was just, I don't know so powerful for me, was this the only way when you're sixteen and you get your driver's license in St. Louis and it's, you know, the nineteen seventies, that you you get independence is to get in your car and go to a parking lot somewhere and hang out with your friends. And that's the kind of places we did it at. And and I realized that now it's two thousand four New York City. New Yorkers don't get in

their car and drive around. But what if we could use a park, a public park like Passon Square Park, almost in the same way that I had grown up at places like Steak and Shake, using the parking lot where people get to hang out with people. And I realized that what Fast Food had done, you know, between the happy Day's era um and and today, was they hijacked the experience of people being with people. The whole point was get it quick, cheap, and then get out

of there right and drive through. And and we said, well, okay, we didn't invent hamburgers or hot dogs or milkshakes, but what if we could make them a little bit better, but then return the experience of people getting to be with people. And in the most convoluted way, the long lines at Shake Shack gave people an opportunity to be with people. And and it just, I don't know, it just works. I wish I had come up with that idea.

We got lucky, you know, um, I love St. Louis By the way, I dated a boy from St. Louis at UVA, but I love you dated or he dated a friend of mine I can't really remember. But he also is kind of behind the St. Louis tradition. His name is Joe Switzer and Switzer's liquorice didn't didn't like a street smell like licorice because the Switzers. Oh my gosh, how many people know Switzers licorice? That was That was like the best. That takes me back to Spicer's five

and ten, where I'd go for Switzer's liquorice and baseball cards. St. Louis must have been a really fun place to grow up with so many people I know I really like from St. Louis, like Bob Costas is from St. Louis and my friend Bou Kissinger who I went to v A with. But anyway, I digress. We have another question, you know book Kissner. Yeah, I think real name is Eileen. I think she went to the same school I went to,

John Burrows. If I'm not that's so funny. And I also dated a boy from St. Louis name Buzzy Lane. What I think I know him too. I think he went to St. Louis Country Day School. He did. It was nice. We can play this game pretty well. Isn't that funny? The name game? All right? Here's another question from Daniel on Twitter. He says, my family of four loves Shake Shack, from their burgers to hot dogs, to

the fries and the cheese sauce it. As a parent, I'm a little concerned about the number of calories they're taking in every time we visit. Are you thinking on expanding your menu to include a bit more healthier options? Amen, Daniel. I want to know the answer to that question. And do you want to start a new fast food restaurant which I know you call fast casual with me, Danny? That would really serve much healthier options. So a great question, and I think the most candid answer is that people

don't like to eat healthy food. No. I think people do increasingly care about eating healthy food, and they should as do I as do as do my whole family. Because you're very I should say. People can't see you, but I'm sitting next to you and you're quite spelt. I know you take good care of yourself. I would weigh four pounds if I did what you do. I don't think you would, because I think that that good.

So let me just start at the beginning. Shake Shack is not a health food restaurant, and I think that an one who says I've got a great diet, you should eat cheeseburgers and cheese fries and milkshakes every day of your life would get laughed out of town. On the other hand, I would say that I'm not at all interested in living a completely monastic, pleasure free life.

And there are times when I want to have a good steak or a good cheeseburger, and I think what's important is when you do that, When you do make that choice, let it be something good. And I think one of the things we take very very seriously at shake Shack is how do we source the ingredients. We made a big move to use beef that is completely all natural, which in this case sometimes that means nothing, but in this case it means hormone growth, hormone free

and antibiotic free. Um every single ingredient we use. We have, our fries are now non GMO. We care deeply so that, yeah, you have calories, I would say, here's the secret. Only have a half of a milkshake, but make it a coffee milkshake, and do it with French fries, and only do it. Only do that, like every now and then. The burgers are really not that high in calories. Next thing, you asked a really good question, what are we doing?

First of all, here's what we're not doing. We're not going to become a full service restaurant, where we say, in order to make sure Katie and and whoever cares about this, in order to make sure they come every day, let's add salads and raw fish and all kinds of grilled chicken sandwich or something. So here we go. So we added a We added a fantastic chicken sandwich a year ago, um, which is killer if you've never tried it.

It's not grilled, it's fried. We are we're playing actually right this minute in Brooklyn with a new grilled chicken sandwich. So you can try that and we'll see how people react to it. If you need a taste tester, give me a call. We get a lot of people who ask us, when can we we love your schomberg. We have a mushroom burger happens to have cheese in it, and so increasingly we're hearing from people who are vegan saying, is there something you can serve us other than just

French fries. We love your French fries, but that's the only vegan thing on the whole menu. And so we're working on that as well, and we'll see if, if, if, someday we can come up with something that is cravable. And my metric for shake Shack are two things. It needs to be something that is plausibly something you would eat at a shack, right, So you're not going to get a avocado salad. I'm sorry, You're gonna have to

go to Union Square Cafe for that. But let's say, and metric number two is it has to be cravable. So the schumburger made the menu because it looks like a burger, it eats like a burger. It's mushrooms and cheese, and it's something that as a carnivore I would even crave. So I want to come up someday, hopefully with something

that is vegan and cravable, even to to omnivores. Having said that, I mean, I do think there's a big hole in the market, and I think you and I should discuss this after the podcast for a healthier fast casual restaurant, because I always say to Howard Schultz name drop. I know, but I know him a little because I've interviewed him a bunch of times. Like have some healthier options at Starbucks. They've started to, but I think, like you even have a healthy brand muffin that is a

hundred calories. I would get it all the time at Starbucks. That would make me come to start right now. We've just invested in a company called Tender Greens, which is a California based company. They'll be coming to New York early in You've also invested in Sweet Greens. I know in Sweet, I know too much about you. It's it's actually scaring me. So now, I don't think that either of those two awesome places are what you would call fast casual. They're a little bit more than that. Um,

And I do think you're right. I think there's there's a place for really cravable food that you could eat three times a day and feel good about yourself. So we have to wrap it up, but I want to dish with you for a minute. Who was your favorite customer you've had here at one of your restaurants. I mean, who did you You've met everybody, Danny, well obviously you, oh yeah, well okay, other than me, But who did you meet that just blew your socks off? Boy? So

many which is pretty cool. But I have to say my childhood hero who um was Bob Gibson the picture for the St. Louis Cardinals. Um when he came to Union Square Cafe and I was at the game where Roberto Clementi lined a shot off of Gibson's shin and Gibson got up and pitched to the next three batters

with a broken leg. Um, you want to talk about courage I saw in the area at at one point to one E r A. And the fact that that guy who I looked up to as a little kid was eating dinner and drinking wine in my restaurant, let me sit down and talk with him, and later became an investor in our barbecue restaurant, Blue Smoke. I mean,

that's that's pretty cool. It doesn't get much better than that, didn't How about somebody who maybe people who aren't baseball aficionados, would know about any celebrities, any movie stars, TV stars, that kind of thing. I mean, I don't even know

where to start. Just remember thinking, wow, that's cool. I mean, we've had President Obama, um eating at my aleno, and how cool for him to stand up in front of the entire dining room and put his arm around me and say, I would not be president if it hadn't been for your grandfather who schooled me and zero to three early childhood education when I was when I was running for state Senate of Illinois, state senate, not even

US Senate. That was pretty cool. It's also cool to have Michelle Obama come in, but it was pretty cool to have the Bush daughters in the restaurant. We're we played all sides, we played all sides of the aisle here. You're such a diploma. I will say this, it's kind of amazing to me that in thirty two years of being a restaurateur. UM, I don't know that I've ever served Donald Trump once that not all politicians care about food.

Um if Donald, if Donald Trump came to your restaurant now, UM, I know you would be ever the gracious host you are, do you I don't actually you tell me. Of course we would, of course you would. It would It would be a very very awkward situation because I'm afraid that our staff members on a number of levels would would look askance at me. You know, one of the most important parts of our business is caring for the people

who work here. And it's true that we do not take a political test of the people who work in our company, and we have people who are probably huge Donald Trump fans who work somewhere in our company. But I also have a sense that if he did nine in the restaurant, people would be incredibly professional, and they would also probably be somewhat uncomfortable. Well, Danny, thanks so much for letting us come and showing us what is the Latin word for hospitality again, speedy? Well you showed

us and oh speedy. So thank you very much. It's really fun to talk to you. Before I think our production team I was so remiss in not breaking out in song during my interview with Danny Meyer. You know, when you have a good answer to an insult or something someone says to you, like thirty minutes later and you think I should have said this, while I'm thinking I should have sung this. Food glorious food, hot sausage

and mustard. While we're in the mood cold Jelly and custard peace putting in SAVALOI, what next is a question? Rich gentlemen? Have it boys and diedgess John, excuse me? That was from Oliver the Musical, And the reason I know the words is I sang it at our sixth grade assembly with a bunch of other people. Please do not worry anyway. Thank you so much to our production team.

You know their names by now. Gianna Palmer our producer, Gared O'Connell, our audio engineer, or Richie our production assistant. Where was Nora today? She was editing some other shows. Gosh, we keep them busy, busy, busy here people. Then of course Alison Bresnik, who always sticks the landing on social media, a little gymnastics Jarkin, Thanks Gianna, Emily Bena over at Katie Currect Media. And I would like to say thank

you to BETHA. Moas, my assistant, who was here accompanying us on our interview today and who helps me out in so many ways every day. And a big thank you to Danny Meyer and the team at Union Square Cafe for letting me invade their fine establishment to tape

this episode. Brian and I are the show's executive producers, Mark Phillips wrote our theme music, and remember you can email us with your guest ideas, questions and feedback at comments at current podcast dot com or leave us a voicemail at nine to nine to four four six three seven. Please keep it clean. People. Find Brian on Twitter at Goldsmith b and you can find me if you search Katie Curic on just about every social media platform. Now, we'll be back in two weeks for our year end

episode with tennis champ Maria Sharapova. In the meantime, enjoy the winter solstice. I'll talk to you when the days are getting longer again. Thanks so much for listening, and I will tell Brian you all said hey,