“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

Usually I write about the emotions that songs bring up, today I’ll be talking a bit about a book called “Unreasonable Hospitality”. I realize and warn you that throughout this blog, I’m going to sound pretentious, however I’d like to be clear, I don’t think I am important, I think the things I speak about are, and you’ll understand why if you read along.

Will Guidara was essentially born to work in restaurants, with his parents having worked in hospitality while he was growing up, he even remembers the day he knew it was what he wanted to do, as I remember the day I knew it was what I wanted to do. His day came many year before mine, and it was brought on by an experience when he was a kid, going to the four seasons with his dad. Everything about the experience and the restaurant made him realize in that moment it’s what he wanted to do. Mine was my first shift behind a bar. April 21, 2014 is the day I realized restaurants were special.

This book is all about how Will challenged how big of an impact making people feel could have on this business, and how when he bought Eleven Madison Park from Danny Meyer, it went from a middling brasserie, to world’s best restaurant in 2017, earning three Michelin stars as well.

This book gives me great hope for what can come from hospitality, but it also makes me fucking furious at what I see from restaurants. Mediocre is really the word I would use to describe a vast majority of restaurants(this is where I start to sound like an asshole). So many restaurants focus on all the wrong things, they don’t spend enough time educating their staff, they don’t give their staff enough creative freedom.

In this book Will mentions a quote that stands out to me, “service is black and white. Hospitality is in color.”

For those that have never worked in a restaurant or don’t understand that quote let me sum it up.

Service is all the technical aspects of your experience with the guest, how you put food in from of them with open hands, protein to the right. How you pour a taste of wine, in the correct glass, holding the bottle label out for the guest to peek at while they taste it to make sure it’s what they’re looking for. How you fire your next course, and clear the table to reset the guests with fresh plates and whatever silverware they need for their next course. You get the idea.

Hospitality is how you interact with the guest, the connection you build, how you listen, and gather as much information about your guest to anticipate their needs throughout their meal, to be able to recommend the correct things, to know how to do something special for them if the night calls for it.

Basically with service there is a right and a wrong. If you approach a table and serve the guest on the right their food with your right hand, well then your elbow is in their face while you’re putting the plate down, so you did it wrong.

With hospitality, you learn people, how to speak to them, how casual or formal you should be with them, etc.

When I go out to dinner, if I had to pick one or the other I personally pick hospitality, because I don’t care about fresh silverware between courses.

I’ve never had an experience at a restaurant that made me say “wow”. In fact a lot of my experiences at restaurants are what cause me to strive for perfection, knowing I can’t achieve it.

I guess all of this is to say I’m fucking frustrated with restaurants, the people who work in them, the people who manage them, and the people who own them. It seems like few operators care about good service and hospitality anymore. The people who work in restaurants are increasingly becoming people that don’t care about the impact they have on the guest, they care about the paycheck at the end of the week. They don’t realize those two things go hand in hand.

I think about my career in hospitality and I think about how I’ve always been trying to get better, about how I some day want to be a part of a team that gets a Michelin star, James beard awards, etc. To get recognition for the work you do in hospitality it takes a team, and I don’t just mean a group of people. It takes a group of like minded people, people who want to make magic in a world that could use more. Restaurants are as much an opportunity to make the world a better place as anything else. People go to restaurants to celebrate, to sulk, in their best times, worst times. People aren’t spending money at restaurants for the Fuck of it. You can buy a good bottle of wine or spirit, craft beer, whatever your jam is at most liquor stores. Access to tools and ingredients to make cocktails as well as recipes from award winning bars are at an all time high. Nobody is coming in because you have a good chardonnay that’s $14 a glass, they’re coming in for the experience, the ambience, the hospitality. Don’t get me wrong you occasionally get the guest who just wants to be left alone, but even that guest is there for the energy of the room and the service they’re getting.

It makes me wonder did we as professionals just begin to offer a lesser level of service? Or did the general public stop expecting more?

Are there restaurants out there that still strive for excellence?

Have they all begun to accept mediocrity instead?

Is it a workforce problem? Do people not want to work in hospitality anymore? Or are they just doing it for the quick cash it offers?

I hope great restaurants and great hospitality make a comeback, and I hope to be a part of it.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.