What Could Possibly Go Right? Quotes
by Danny Meyer
This page gathers lines from Danny Meyer's book about hospitality, business, culture, and change. You'll find practical wisdom, honest reflections on failure and success, and reminders about how people should treat each other. Some quotes are short and memorable. Others are thoughtful and a little uncomfortable.
The book is quotable because Meyer writes from real experience. He doesn't pretend leadership is tidy. He shares hard decisions, mistakes, and small insights that stick with you. If you run a team, work in service, or just care about how people feel, these lines are worth returning to.
Top Quotes from What Could Possibly Go Right?
“I defined hospitality as the act (and art) of being on someone else's side.”
Meyer explains his core definition of hospitality to the Gramercy Tavern staff.
It distills hospitality into a memorable ethic of advocacy and care.
“I explained the difference between the Golden Rule (do unto others as you'd want done unto you) and what I called the Golden Rule of Hospitality (do unto others as you believe they'd want done unto them).”
He contrasts the Golden Rule with the Golden Rule of Hospitality for his team.
It reframes empathy as anticipating what others actually want, not what you would want.
“Success and failure aren't always two ends of a spectrum. They can be two sides of the same coin.”
Meyer reflects after closing Tabla that success and failure can be intertwined.
It reframes failure as inseparable from success and offers comfort to anyone ashamed of a setback.
“What if, as a company, we could distinguish ourselves not just by how successfully we could open a restaurant but by how thoughtfully and humanely we could close one?”
Meyer describes the leadership reframe that helped him decide to close Tabla.
It turns closing into an act of values-driven leadership, suggesting how a company ends things can matter as much as how it starts them.
“As my grandfather taught me, the definition of business is “problems,” and on most days, there are more problems to solve than triumphs to celebrate.”
Reflecting on the failed Creative Juice venture, Meyer cites his grandfather’s definition of business.
It reframes struggle as the ordinary condition of business and encourages resilience over expectation of easy triumph.
“Culture is like a shark; it can’t stay in one place. It must constantly swim forward, or it will die.”
The narrator concludes that growth should fuel culture rather than threaten it.
It captures the paradox that culture must change to survive, a memorable metaphor for organizational growth.
“How do you try to convey that you aren't trying? You don't try! It's about having the self-confidence to do the job well without fanfare or unnatural contrivance. That's it. Doing your job well is hard. Sprezzatura happens when you're able to make hard look easy.”
Danny Meyer defines sprezzatura while developing the Roman trattoria concept.
It captures the paradox at the heart of effortless grace: mastery is hard, but it should not look hard.
Themes Behind the Quotes
The quotes keep circling back to hospitality as a daily practice. It is less about polished service and more about paying attention, taking another person's side, and treating people as the point rather than as an afterthought. That idea stretches from guests and employees to partners, rivals, and entire teams.
Another theme is leadership under pressure. Growth can be exciting, but it also tests culture, identity, and values. The book treats failure, endings, and hard calls as teachers. It suggests that strong companies stay human while they scale, change their minds when needed, and keep culture alive through constant care.
Quotes by Chapter
Chapter 1: The Seeds of Culture
“From this moment on, we are in the business of selling hospitality.”
He tells the Gramercy Tavern staff how he wants them to view their work.
It boldly reframes a restaurant's product as the feeling guests take away.
“Our first customer is you! How you make each other feel—the mutual respect and trust you share with one another—will be the input to a virtuous cycle, where one good thing will lead to something even better.”
Meyer introduces the Virtuous Cycle of Enlightened Hospitality.
It places employee care at the center of a cycle that benefits guests, community, suppliers, and investors.
Chapter 2: Speed Bumps in Paradise
“The reality was that while we were still partners, we were also competitors—not just for guests but for the hearts and minds of the Gramercy Tavern team.”
After Tom Colicchio opened Craft while remaining at Gramercy Tavern, the author describes their strained arrangement.
It captures the painful paradox of being business partners and rivals at once, and the emotional cost of divided loyalty.
“I felt unwelcome in my own restaurant. It seemed like a cold war had broken out, and I was shirking my responsibility by staying away. Something had to give.”
During the long dysfunction at Gramercy Tavern, the author reflects on his own avoidance and the divided team.
It names the isolation of leadership when a team splits into camps and the moment avoidance can no longer continue.
“We arrived at a price that felt equally unfair to both of us—generally the hallmark of a fair deal—and I bought him out. The divorce was finally official.”
After years of negotiation, the author and Tom Colicchio finally agree on a buyout.
The line turns a business transaction into an emotional divorce, with fairness measured by mutual discomfort.
“At my core, my motivation in opening new restaurants was not to grow for growth’s sake but to challenge myself to surpass my own past performances. I wanted to prove that the success of each preceding restaurant hadn't been a fluke— that I wasn’t the imposter that, deep down, I feared I was.”
Reflecting on his compulsion to keep opening restaurants, the author admits the deeper insecurity driving him.
It is a candid confession of imposter syndrome and the restless need to outdo oneself.
Chapter 3: Failing Up
“Shutting down a restaurant—or anything, really, in which you've invested untold amounts of heart, soul, and effort—is excruciating. For just about everyone involved, restaurants often feel like a family, and saying goodbye to one is far more emotionally painful than simply winding down a business.”
Meyer reflects on the emotional difficulty of closing a restaurant that felt like family.
It gives language to the grief of ending something into which people poured heart, soul, and effort.
“I had been too afraid of failure to recognize what clearly needed to be done.”
Meyer admits the fear that delayed his decision to close Tabla.
It names the hidden cost of letting fear of failure override what everyone already knows must be done.
Chapter 4: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
“In truth, many of our choices about whether to pursue a restaurant idea, location, business opportunity, chef hire, or investment have all boiled down to one thing: It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Meyer reflects on how he and his team made major business decisions over the years.
It captures the book’s central theme of humble, hindsight-aware decision-making. Many readers will recognize how their own big choices were made on imperfect instincts.
“My Rule of Two theory aside, the biggest takeaway for me was to keep giving myself the time and space to think beyond standard business clichés. That’s where the unlocks often live.”
After explaining his New Rule of Two for Shake Shack, Meyer distills the broader lesson.
It encourages questioning inherited business formulas and making room for unconventional thinking. The line is a concise reminder that innovation often comes from reframing the rules.
“I'd been clinging to a “rule” that wasn’t really a rule at all; and even if it had been, this was the perfect time to give myself permission to change my mind.”
After the second Shake Shack succeeds, Meyer admits he had been too rigid about expansion.
It shows that rigid principles can become excuses for fear, and changing your mind can be wise. The line gives readers permission to revise their own self-imposed rules.
“Shake Shack was a Thoroughbred horse that wanted to run, and I was long past being able to tighten the reins—if anything, I was hanging on for dear life.”
Meyer describes Shake Shack’s growth after the second location opened.
The metaphor conveys both momentum and loss of control in a vivid way. It resonates with anyone who has watched a small idea grow beyond their command.
Chapter 5: One Foot on the Accelerator, the Other on the Brake
“Captive-audience dining—which historically defined the standard food offerings in ballparks, museums, colleges, concert halls, airports, and the like—had always seemed to me to serve the lowest common denominator food and beverages, presumably charging whatever the captive audience would bear.”
Meyer reflects on the usual approach to feeding people in captive settings before describing Shake Shack’s Citi Field strategy.
It names the cynical logic of captive-audience dining and sets up Meyer’s contrarian hospitality standard.
“But at Citi Field, our goal was the opposite: While we knew that our food was not the primary reason people were going to a ballgame, we aspired to provide a product that was so good that people would have been eager to go there even if it wasn’t in a stadium.”
He contrasts typical ballpark food with what he wanted Shake Shack at Citi Field to represent.
It captures the ambition to make stadium food desirable on its own merits, not merely tolerated because fans are trapped.
“We knew that the most precious part of Shake Shack was our brand, and we wanted to preserve our value proposition by keeping prices as close as possible to what people experienced when they visited any other Shake Shack.”
When Mets executives wanted Shake Shack to raise prices because demand was so high, Meyer explains why he refused.
It shows brand trust and value consistency being protected over short-term revenue.
“But I was willing for us to take on all this experiential learning because I so firmly believed that hospitality, something we did know about, would win the day no matter what format our restaurants took.”
After operational stumbles at ballparks and racetracks, Meyer explains why he still embraced the experiments.
It distills his conviction that hospitality is the transferable core of any restaurant format.
Chapter 6: The Great Recession Intercedes
“For the first time in my career, I genuinely feared this might be the beginning of the end.”
As the Great Recession crushed USHG’s full-service restaurant revenue, Meyer confronts the possibility of collapse.
It captures a leader’s rare admission of fear and makes an existential crisis feel personal.
“Hope proved to be a futile strategy, and the bank soon let us know they would not be extending a new loan on any terms with us.”
Bank of America refuses to renew USHG’s loan despite a long relationship.
It distills how hope and loyalty can fail in a credit crisis, leaving only action.
“Before starting with USHG, Jeff had wisely asked me to name all my sacred cows. I had forgotten to mention this sacred pig.”
Meyer recalls Jeff Flug asking him to identify untouchable priorities before joining USHG.
The self-deprecating image of a sacred pig makes a hard financial lesson memorable.
Chapter 7: Culture Is Like a Shark
“I don’t exactly know how to define the word, but I'll tell you one thing: Culture is a whole lot like a newborn baby. You have to keep your eyes on it 24/7. You need to feed it many times throughout the day. And the minute it makes a mess, you'd better clean it up immediately.”
Dan Guerrero, UCLA's athletic director, describes what culture means during a tour of the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.
It makes culture feel like a living, demanding responsibility rather than an abstract value.
“Maybe the question you should instead be asking yourselves is this: How can we use our growth to advance our culture?”
Erika Andersen reframes the narrator's struggle over maintaining culture amid growth.
It shifts the conversation from fearful maintenance to purposeful evolution.
“Without question, most of the underpinnings of our culture have come not from triumphs but from mistakes and from the resulting insights we've gained from them.”
After recounting the olive oil spill at a private dinner, the narrator reflects on where culture really comes from.
It reframes mistakes as cultural raw material, offering a humane path to learning.
Chapter 8: Sprezzatura
“There are only eight notes in an octave; what makes a spectacular piece of music is combining those eight notes into something that feels like a revelation.”
Meyer reflects on how he would give the Roman restaurant his own thumbprint instead of creating a replica.
It reframes creativity as fresh combination rather than invention from nothing.