Danny Meyer is a Renaissance Restaurateur who leads and lives by the tenets of Enlightened Hospitality. The salient core is that each business has the same stakeholders and “choosing how the stakeholders are prioritized will often create a virtuous cycle where one good thing leads to something better.” Danny Meyer chooses to prioritize his staff members at Union Square Hospitality Group and even enacted a generous parental leave program for his team. Enlightened Hospitality is analogous to putting on the oxygen mask first in an airplane before helping someone else. With stronger morale and well-being, the staff members are better equipped to provide outstanding service to guests which results in increased profitability, happy investors and ultimately creates a more impactful community. It was a milestone moment in my culinary journey to have a Kitchen Chat with Danny Meyer along with my co-host Chef Jaime Laurita in the Middleby Residential Showroom in New York.
Danny Meyer has a heart for hospitality and a heart for charity. Over the years, USHG has gravitated toward organizations that help nourish and empower communities with food insecurities, including No Kid Hungry, City Harvest, and many others. USHG has also volunteered to prepare meals at their restaurants for hospice patients and their families at Beth Israel. Every Shake Shack is responsible for selecting a local not-for-profit that it wants to support and proceeds from one of the concretes on the menu will go to help that charity. Meyer applauds Randy Garutti, CEO of Shake Shack for his outstanding leadership. I will always remember meeting Randy Garutti for a Kitchen Chat when Shake Shack opened its second Chicago location in 2015.
Randy Garutti CEO of Shake Shack discusses delicious burgers and “enlightened hospitality.” Discover how this global company keeps things local and delicious. And visit your nearest Shake Shack location. Savor the day!