Excerpt from FastCompany
“I spent so many years running a restaurant trying to learn from other industries,” says Will Guidara, who as general manager and then co-owner of New York’s Eleven Madison Park transformed it from a good brasserie into the world’s No. 1 dining destination. “Especially in this moment, it feels especially relevant for other industries to start learning from restaurants.”
In his new book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, Guidara embeds ideas and insights for how to do this in the compelling narrative of his pursuit of not just excellence but of a generational shift in what it means to be cared for during an evening out. For the diner, it was a magic trick when the same person who had called them two days earlier to confirm their reservation would be there to greet them at the door as they entered and recognized them on sight. It was the best kind of witchcraft when the server would drop off a complimentary bottle of cognac with the check, changing the most stressful moment of the evening into one of the most delightful. (To say nothing of the actual tableside magic trick Guidara wove into the meal at one point.)
Fast Company: How do you define unreasonable hospitality?
Will Guidara: Anyone who’s done anything that has changed the game, anything that’s been reasonably innovative, has been unreasonable and relentless in the way that they pursued the product they made. Unreasonable hospitality is taking that same spirit and applying it to the way it makes the person who’s being served feel and honestly every other stakeholder that it touches along the way. A lot of people have never actually taken the time to think about that facet of their business and the extraordinary impact that can have, not just in growing the business in a positive direction but the way in which it enhances the experience of whatever you do.
In 2004, the restaurateur Danny Meyer (Gramercy Tavern, Shake Shack), whom you worked for at the time, published Setting the Table, which had a similar spirit to Unreasonable Hospitality of how do we bring the hospitality that is the bedrock of the restaurant business and take it outside this world and scale it. What do you feel like you’re adding to the conversation?
My entire approach to service and hospitality has been built upon the foundation that Danny gave me. The same is true for the book. This book wouldn’t exist in its current form were it not for Setting the Table. What Danny did was brilliant. In addition to the tenets of enlightened hospitality, just the idea of take care of your people first. That’s now so well understood and embraced, but it was very novel when it was first introduced. He defined what hospitality could be.
What I tried to do at Eleven Madison Park was take that and approach it in a completely unreasonable way. What does it look like if you take that idea and sprint with it? When our food was as good as it could be in the world, when our service was as close to technically perfect as possible, when our room was one of the most beautiful, it wasn’t any of those things that actually got us to the top. It was taking that same relentless approach and applying it to hospitality.
One of your maxims is “adversity is a terrible thing to waste.” Have we wasted the pandemic in terms of customer experience? I did appreciate the creativity and experimentation of things like Canlis [the iconic, 70-year-old Seattle fine dining restaurant, which adapted quickly with to-go concepts], but in terms of really seeking to figure out how to take care of customers, there was a lot that did not happen or worse.
People were craving to get back to normal, and there could have been an opportunity to define what a new normal could be. You mention Canlis. One of the touchstones of unreasonable hospitality is take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Far too often, as individuals and as customer service companies, we let self-imposed standards stand in the way of us giving people what they actually want.
During COVID, this storied fine dining institution became a bingo hall and a drive-in movie theater. They’re more beloved and embraced by the entire city and, honestly, the world than they ever were before. Because they stopped caring about how to articulate the brand perfectly and they just care about how to bring joy.
You’ve been doing some consulting and you have the Welcome Conference, which attracts a broader purview of folks than just restaurant people. How do you advise non-restaurant people to think about unreasonable hospitality?
It starts with simple pattern recognition. If you look closely enough at your business and take two hours around a table, just ask yourself, “What do we do? What are the recurring moments that happen, and how can we address them in a more thoughtful, unreasonable way to leave everyone involved in the transaction feeling better on the other side of it?”
I’ll give you an example that just happened to me last night. In the book, I talked about real estate agents. You get a bottle of sparkling wine when you move into a new apartment. Then I ended up randomly working with I think the best real estate agent on Earth, the guy who I’ve been working with as [my family has] been selling one place and moving to another place. We moved to our new apartment yesterday.
When you move, it’s a very chaotic, overwhelming experience, right? You’re trying to settle into a new home. You pack up all your books and your clothes. But it’s pretty well understood that you’re not, like, packing up your entire refrigerator and bringing it with you. Yesterday at 3 o’clock the buzzer rings, and someone brings us two bags of groceries. Just the staples. And that was a gift from a real estate agent.
It’s pattern recognition. What do people actually need when they move into a new house? You don’t need a random bottle of sparkling wine that shows no care or consideration. They’re probably really hungry and scrambling and trying to settle into their new home. Will has a book coming out next week. He’s probably totally overwhelmed. Just give them some food, proper nourishment. That’s beautiful. Simple pattern recognition that’s not a one-size-fits-one gesture of hospitality. He could do that with everyone. But already that’s a much more profound display of graciousness and thoughtfulness. These opportunities exist everywhere.
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