Who’s Got Time to Read – 1 – Danny Meyer

Who’s Got Time to Read?!

In a world where things are going increasingly fast, who still has time to read? Well… 2020 has changed that trend. Long periods of confinement have given us the opportunity to read, at last! 

In this first article of the Who’s Got Time to Read series, I am telling you about a book I read – and highly recommend to anyone in the hospitality industry to read – that has profoundly influenced me, for the best: Setting The Table, by Danny Meyer. 

If you’ve already read the book, please comment and hopefully we will motivate those who haven’t read it yet to do so. Isn’t it the most inspirational book about hospitality?!

Danny Meyer wrote Setting The Table to narrate his experience as an entrepreneur, opening his restaurants in New York 30+ years ago. His philosophy is that “nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you”.  A generation of entrepreneurs have lived by this moto. 

if we could summarise the whole book into a single sentence, if we could define Hospitality in just a few words, we’d quote Meyer himself: “Hospitality starts with the genuine enjoyment of doing something well for the purpose of bringing pleasure to other people.” And yes, it is true that to deliver true hospitality, “we strive to treat our guests the way we would want to be treated.”

Probably the most surprising, yet most effective part of the book is that Meyer did not hide his failures. We know: we learn from our mistakes. Meyer explains over 300+ pages all the mistakes he did, not shying away from detailing even the most embarrassing ones. Reading Setting The Table is humbling and inspiring, regardless to the kind of hospitality business you run or type of leader you already are: this book is essential.  

Meyer, despite his successes, did not intend to only generate profit, focusing instead on a sustainable way of making business. This approach has inspired other great thinkers and speakers, such as Simon Sinek. The next article in the Who’s Got Time to Read series will be dedicated to his amazing and most recent book: Infinite Game. 

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