What Could Possibly Go Right?

Introduction

Overview

Danny Meyer started a hot dog cart in 2001. By 2017, he was running a restaurant group with locations across New York and beyond. The company kept growing, and every new location brought a new set of problems. The hardest ones didn't show up until they got expensive.

Before the introduction, there is a contents list, a dedication, and an illustrated timeline. None of these make an argument on their own.

Structure

Twenty-one chapters are grouped into four parts, each named for its opening chapter:

• Part I, "The Seeds of Culture"
• Part II, "One Foot on the Accelerator, the Other on the Brake"
• Part III, "The Shack Trap"
• Part IV, "Crossing the Bridge"

Timeline

A visual chronology built from photographs and captions runs from 2001 to 2017. It ties dates to places including the Whitney, a backyard grill, Martina, and Tacocina. Acknowledgments and an about-the-author page close the book.

Key Takeaways

• Read the four parts in order. Each part covers a stage a culture goes through, and later stages only make sense after the earlier ones.
• Look at the photo timeline before chapter one. It shows the years and places where these ideas were tested.
• The section headings describe real tensions: growth pulling against restraint, and the moment when a winning formula starts to trap the people who built it.
• Each part opens with a scene from the business. Those first scenes carry the argument, so they matter more than their length suggests.

Chapter 1: The Seeds of Culture

Overview

What does it take to become yourself when everyone around you has already defined success? A young person with unfinished confidence tries on every available identity, absorbs rejection, and faces a choice between performing for approval and discovering a direction that is actually his.

He grew up in St. Louis hearing, mostly from his mother, that he had a lot going for him and was not living up to his potential. The expectation at home, never stated outright, was to apply yourself at a very high level to everything. Everyone but him seemed like an overachiever. His father was a serial entrepreneur who founded a global travel business, survived two bankruptcies, and died of lung cancer at fifty-nine.

His mother pushed him toward John Burroughs, where his older sister Nancy was a star. His first attempt to transfer failed when he told the admissions director, truthfully, that his mother was the reason. He reapplied for tenth grade and got in. A teacher that year asked why he was not as good a student as his sister. At the mirror at home, he decided that if he could not measure up, he would not try. In March 1976, three thin envelopes arrived. Princeton and Brown rejected him. Trinity waitlisted him. He wrote to Trinity's dean of admissions pledging to enroll if accepted. Two weeks later, he had a place. Determined to prove them wrong, he earned straight A's his first semester.

At twenty-seven, he opened Union Square Cafe in 1985. He knew only that he wanted guests to leave feeling better than they arrived. Working the door, the dining room, and the kitchen, he learned that how guests felt mattered as much as the food. Within a decade, the restaurant held three New York Times stars and a James Beard Award for service. When he opened Gramercy Tavern with Tom Colicchio in 1994, leading by example stopped working. He could not be everywhere, and regulars said the new place did not feel like his. At an all-staff meeting, he defined hospitality as being on someone else's side. He separated it from service, the technical delivery of the product, and gave his team the Golden Rule of Hospitality: treat others as you believe they want to be treated.

When the cookies come out of the oven, a child's message is either "Look what I made" or "Look what I made for you." That second version points to a kid with high HQ.

Every role, from dishwasher to sommelier, is screened for HQ. These are people who find thoughtful acts toward others selfish, because their energy is renewed by making others feel better. Drive to win matters just as much. The belief that hospitable people cannot also be competitive is a false choice. "Nice guys finish last" deserves loathing, and "soft skills" sneers at abilities that are genuinely hard. Hiring targets 100 percent candidates: 49 percent what they know how to do, 51 percent who they are while doing it. Competitive drive keeps complacency away, and nobody coasts on the team's record.

Athleticism here means a set of mental and emotional traits, not sports prowess: competitiveness, work ethic, resilience, dot-connecting, and sharp strategic thinking. Asking what motivates a competitor reveals how to lead them. Three styles recur. Beating others: joy comes from defeating someone, as in the photograph of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston. Hating to lose: an allergy to anything but first place. John McEnroe at Wimbledon disputed a call, lost the point, drew a fine, and still won the match and tournament. Beating your own best: "It's me against me." Allyson Felix, chasing her own previous standard toward seven Olympic golds. No style outranks another, though a mix suits a team. He began in the second and became the third.

A bank of interview questions probes HQ, and good answers carry earnestness, clarity, vulnerability, humility and some humor. Overuse of "I" is a red flag, as are lateness and no sign of preparation.

The annual Zagat Survey prompted a scorecard of fifty competitors. In 2004, Gramercy Tavern finished second to Union Square Cafe, ahead of Bouley, Le Bernardin, Aureole and Gotham, with Tabla and Eleven Madison Park at twenty-four and twenty-six. The foundation felt solid, until it wasn't.

Key Takeaways:

• Treat hospitality and service as separate obligations. Impeccable execution is the product you deliver, but the choice to stand on a guest's side is what stays with them afterwards.
• Hire close to an even split between what a candidate can do and who they are while doing it. Favor people who draw energy from giving, and do not read that generosity as an absence of competitive fire.
• Work out which competitive style drives each person you lead, whether beating a rival, refusing anything but first place, or surpassing their own last mark. Build a team that mixes all three rather than ranking them.
• Meet rejection with a commitment instead of a retreat. A letter promising to enroll is what turns a waitlist into a place.
• Keep the rankings in perspective. First and second place held by your own two restaurants describe a moment, not ground that cannot move.

Chapter 2: Speed Bumps in Paradise

Overview

When a restaurant group grows past one kitchen, it faces a question no org chart can answer: is it one business or a collection of independent ones? Every way of honoring both turns out to cost something. Someone is always paying for a loyalty that has no single address.

A Partner Becomes a Competitor

In 2001 Tom Colicchio, Gramercy Tavern's founding chef and Danny Meyer's partner, planned to open his own restaurant in Gramercy Tavern's backyard. Meyer wanted each restaurant led by its own fully committed executive chef. He had opened Eleven Madison Park and Tabla with Kerry Heffernan and Floyd Cardoz rather than enlarge Colicchio's role. Colicchio offered him a minority stake, provided it stayed outside Union Square Hospitality Group. Meyer declined, saying Colicchio could not run both. Colicchio said he would rather cut off his right arm than leave Gramercy Tavern. Two days later, Bob Scott had the law firm Davis Polk hand-deliver a letter. Scott was Morgan Stanley's chief financial officer and one of Gramercy Tavern's largest investors. The letter warned that firing Colicchio would violate Meyer's duty to shareholders. Meyer stood down. Craft opened in 2002.

Six Years of Awkward Dancing

For six years the two stayed tied together even as they pulled apart. Colicchio kept a loyal kitchen staff. He joined Gramercy Tavern's family meal to be seen, then left for Craft. The staff did not know whether they answered to Tom or to Danny. A states-versus-feds split set the home office against the restaurants. Accounting, public relations, and human resources colleagues were made to feel unwelcome at Gramercy Tavern. A 3 percent management fee infuriated leaders who saw themselves as the source of the company's success.

The Split Becomes Official

After Colicchio's chef de cuisine John Schaefer departed, with Colicchio cast as Top Chef's head judge and planning a second Craft in Los Angeles, the two finally negotiated. Valuing the business stalled them. Meyer offered to flip a coin for who bought whom, which Colicchio refused. Walking past the restaurant with Audrey, Meyer was told he could not sell the place he had poured himself into. He bought Colicchio out at a price that felt equally unfair to both.

At Eleven Madison Park, the order was to end the rival camps. No one was permitted to look down on a colleague. Meyer doubted he was the right person to deliver that message, given the conflicts he had mediated at Gramercy Tavern.

Earning a Fourth Star, Losing a Third

Three stars from the New York Times pushed Eleven Madison Park forward, but Daniel and general manager Will Guidara wanted a fourth. In 2009 Frank Bruni returned for a third review, and the staff, recognizing him, planned every detail of his visits.

From Germany's Black Forest, where Meyer was on a family vacation, PR director Michelle Lehmann relayed that the Times wanted to photograph dishes. They belonged not to Eleven Madison Park but to Union Square Cafe, a three-star restaurant since 1988 whose dining room managers had not noticed the critic in the house.

Two Stars

The night before publication Meyer was at Citi Field as the Cardinals led the Mets by a run in the fifth. Lehmann's first text said Union Square Cafe had kept its three stars. Her second said the paper had posted the wrong review. Two stars. In twenty-four years of business he had never lost one.

He left the game and, shaken, drove not to the restaurant but onto the departures ramp at LaGuardia's American Airlines terminal. At Union Square Cafe, no one spoke. There was no wine, no music, no champagne like past celebrations.

The L of Leadership

Paul Bolles-Beaven answered a question about leadership by hinging his palms and outstretched fingers into an L. The lower hand supports the team, the upper pushes it forward. A good leader does both. A great one knows what proportion of pressure each requires.

A week later Eleven Madison Park earned its fourth star. The pride and the shame together were nearly unmanageable. The joy between the restaurants had turned into rivalry. Enlightened Hospitality worked, but the systems and structure supporting it were fraying. Meyer's identity as a restaurateur had to give way to leading a hospitality company.

Key Takeaways

• Decide whether a star colleague's own venture belongs inside your company or beside it, and draw that line before the venture exists rather than after it opens.
• Accept that your authority over who stays has a ceiling set by the people who own the business, and plan for the moment the two pull in opposite directions.
• End a murky separation fast; dragging it out breeds years of internal infighting that guests never see and always pay for.
• Balance support and pressure deliberately, adjusting how much of each a person needs, and expect your proudest and worst professional news to arrive in the same week.
• Once a working philosophy proves itself, the real constraint becomes how the company is structured, and your identity has to widen from running a restaurant to leading a company.

Chapter 3: Failing Up

Overview

A beloved restaurant can be packed for years and still lose money. So what does its leader owe the people inside it when every attempt to fix the numbers fails and closing looks like surrender? What do you do when holding on protects your story but not your team?

Tabla opened in 1998. Chef Floyd Cardoz applied French technique to Indian flavors, and Ruth Reichl gave it three stars in The New York Times. For two years it was one of the city's hardest reservations, with annual revenue near $8 million. But the space was huge, the rent was high, and the margins were thin. Break-even was about $7 million, and later years fell short. The final two years lost nearly $500,000 each. Bad weather ruined two crucial patio summers. Every pivot failed — menu, pricing, uniforms, lighting, art, even swapping a Ganesh statue. The team's underdog loyalty kept it alive anyway.

Danny Meyer delayed the decision two years. He used bank loans to pay staff and suppliers. Then RC told him something that changed his mind: keeping an unprofitable business open hurt the team, who had gone two years without raises or promotions. Closing, it turned out, was more generous than staying open. Instead of padlocking the door, Tabla gave four months' notice, with final service on December 30, 2010. Staff got coaching on résumés and interviews. Job fairs were hosted with USHG restaurants and Tabla alumni. Special dinners were held, including a Madison Square Park Conservancy benefit and guest-chef dinners celebrating new Indian cooking.

To sell the remaining seven and a half years of the lease, Meyer met La Mar Cevicheria, the Lima restaurant of Gaston Acurio. On a family trip to Peru, the La Mar team served endless ceviche, tiradito, and two bowls of uni. Meyer ate about twenty sea urchins to show respect, then spent three days recovering from iodine and altitude before Machu Picchu. La Mar bought the lease. The proceeds covered staff, rent, sales tax, and vendors, and returned investors about $1.08 on the dollar.

In 2011, Eleven Madison Park won a third Michelin star and Wine Spectator's Grand Award. Will Guidara and Daniel Humm asked to develop the Nomad Hotel while staying at EMP, but outside USHG. Meyer refused to repeat the Tom Colicchio/Craft split. He told them to buy EMP. They did, backed by hedge fund managers and investment bankers. Six years later they made it the world's number-one restaurant. John Ragan stayed with USHG and became a master sommelier, wine director, and president.

Tabla's thirteen years launched careers, including Dan Kluger's James Beard awards. The closure freed money and time and redeployed talented staff. A park kiosk, born as a hot dog cart in EMP's private dining kitchen, remained.

Key Takeaways

• When a business can no longer support its team, close it as generously as you opened it.
• Give long notice, coach people for their next roles, and accept that staying open can hurt them more than closing.
• Sell or hand off a thriving property when keeping it inside your company would limit its leaders.
• Honor obligations before returning capital. Danny Meyer's sale of Tabla's lease to La Mar settled payroll, rent, taxes, and suppliers, then returned investors roughly $1.08 per dollar.
• Judge a venture by the people it advanced and the resources it freed, not just by whether it survived.