Danny Meyer distinguishes between service and hospitality

Photo from StLToday.com

In New York magazine, restaurateur Danny Meyer talks about the differences between service and hospitality. He owns 10 dining spots. Even though I’m not in the restuarant business — wait, does reading waiterrant regularly count? — I think that this advice applies to anyone who works in with customers, customers of any sort:

It’s an important distinction. Service is delivering on your promise. Hospitality is making people feel good while you’re delivering on that promise. (link)

NPR published an excerpt of his book, Setting the Table:

Creating restaurants or even recipes is like composing music: there are only so many notes in the scale from which all melodies and harmonies are created. The trick is to put those notes together in a way not heard before. For us, the ongoing challenge has been to combine the best elements of fine dining with accessibility — in other words, with open arms. This was once a radical concept in my business, where excellent cuisine was almost always paired with stiff arm’s-length service. Sometimes, we’ve moved in the other direction, beginning with the casual atmosphere of a barbecue joint or a shakes-and-burgers stand, and then attempting to exceed expectations by employing a caring staff and using the finest ingredients. Our formula is a lot tougher to achieve than it sounds, but it can be applied successfully to virtually any business you can name. (link)