Use your time well. Everyone gets time equally. It doesn't matter how much money you make.
If you're constantly making business decisions on behalf of your investors first, ultimately you're going to wear down your other stakeholders. It's going to be potentially hurtful for your employees and your customers and the community you do business with.
It's always imperative to improve and to remain dynamic - or you'll become lunch, as opposed to serving it.
Restaurants are like kids. You hope you understand their innate gifts, and then you let them realize their aspirations.
There are three things that people pick up on the instant they walk into your home on Thanksgiving. They will be able to feel the human energy. They'll smell the food. And they will see, instantly, the table.
Long before Starbucks popularized the phrase 'the third place' - somewhere to interact outside of work and home - it was neighborhood restaurants that helped to define places like Union Square.
I've been in love with Washington ever since renting my very first apartment there many years ago while working as a Senate intern.
I trust that McDonald's can find a way to sell all-natural chicken without raising their prices; we did that at Shake Shack. It is more expensive, and we took a slight margin hit, but we did it. And if we can do it, I know that much bigger companies can.
Be aware of textural elements throughout a party, like silverware, stemware, and linens. But the biggest element is metaphorical: it's your own touch. How are you making people feel?
One great worker equals three not-so-great workers, so it's worth paying terrific people not just for today but to find people that we think have upward mobility to become tomorrow's leaders.
When I was young, I had no choice as to what I was eating.
I gasp for air if I don't get to breathe Italian air once a year.
In the restaurant business, as opposed to the theater, center orchestra is an 8 P. M. reservation. Orchestra on the side is 7 or 8:30. Mezzanine is 6 and 9. But people don't take it personally when they call the theater and can't get what they want.
Some people are near- or farsighted - I'm thorn-sighted. The thorns on the rose are in really sharp definition for me, the rose petals a little fuzzier.
Constant, gentle pressure is my preferred technique for leadership, guidance, and coaching.
I think that any business that thinks that the transaction is 'you give me money and I give you food, next, you give me money and I give you food, next,' without understanding that people deeply want to feel restored is in danger.
You cannot open a major New York restaurant today and not be aware that showbiz will play a role.
My favorite place is whichever sidewalk is beneath my feet because I am just constantly fascinated by walking and looking and learning. If I've already walked a street five times, then the next five times I walk it looking up, and I learn something about the cornices.
People use restaurants to do business, to do politics, to socialize.
A restaurant is a compendium of choices that the owner has made. If you look around a restaurant, everything represents a choice: the kind of salt shaker that's on the table, the art on the walls, the uniforms on the waiters.
