Blog

Image Above: Danny Meyer on Hospitality...the root word of Hospice

In my last newsletter I introduced Danny Meyer the famous NYC restauranteur with radical ideas about "enlightened hospitality".  His commitment to extraordinary customer service begins first with an excellent staff.  How do you hire - for skills, or for people smarts? My philosophy has always led me to look first for personality, a sense of mission, and cultural fit, because the rest can be learned.

Danny dealt with a similar situation in staffing his first restaurant. As he describes the process, “My brain was looking for people with restaurant skills, but my heart was beseeching me to cultivate a restaurant family. The job application form I wrote was idiosyncratic: I typed questions like, “How has your sense of humor been useful to you in your service career?” “What was so wrong about your last job?” “Do you prefer Hellmann’s or Miracle Whip?” If...