Danny Meyer

“I learned that you shouldn't take your most esoteric concept and fit it into the largest space with the highest fixed costs. It puts too much pressure on the restaurant to hit grand slams every day when there just aren't enough people who want to watch that sport.”

“I throw 14 parties a week.”

“I think that Shake Shack wouldn't exist had it not been for Twitter. I don't think you would have gotten a hundred New Yorkers to stand in line for an hour if they couldn't have made their time really productive and organized snowball fights, ordered free hot chocolate, and, you know, Instagrammed photos.”

“I'm a big believer that you can try to change the world based on philosophy, doctrine, and belief. But I think the thing that really drives the world is hedonism, the pleasure factor.”

“Short of hiring a new staff, consider giving subpar workers a chance to improve. Tell them why they're not measuring up and give them a set amount of time to make specific improvements.”

“You wouldn't have the same art on the walls at every restaurant or the same waiter uniforms. Neither should you have the same service style at every restaurant.”

“I grew up in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis. Our idea of Judaism was no bar mitzvahs and a Christmas tree that had a skirt at the bottom embroidered with the names of my grandparents.”

“In one respect, it's easier to open a restaurant in New York because you get more media attention than anywhere else. Almost everyone will try a new place once, irrespective of the reviews, because it's a spectator sport.”

“During one of his uncannily well-timed impromptu visits to my restaurant, Union Square Cafe, Pat Cetta taught me how to manage people. Pat was the owner of a storied New York City steakhouse called Sparks, and by that time, he was an old pro at running a fine restaurant.”

“Wearing a baseball cap or sleeveless shirt in a white-tablecloth restaurant is rude and makes other diners upset, just like someone on a cellphone.”

“One of my great teachers was the late Jean-Claude Vrinat of Taillevent in Paris.”

“I just think the best way for me to be greedy is long-term greedy.”

“It's always imperative to improve and to remain dynamic - or you'll become lunch, as opposed to serving it.”

“Service is how product is delivered - the technical aspect.”

“The great thing about capitalism is that it's a system that works.”

“Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions - for and to - express it all.”

“Diners are upset that restaurants aren't honoring reservations, and a lot of restaurants help bring this on by overbooking.”

“Today, it's almost the outlier if people are not photographing what they ate and then sharing that in real time.”

“At the base level, a burger is a piece of meat and a bun with something on it. It's simple but it seems to make a lot of people happy.”

“If someone said, 'You've got to eat your next two meals at American fast-food restaurants,' I would do one meal at Chipotle and one meal at Popeyes fried chicken.”