Restaurant-Smart vs. Corporate-Smart

A hospitality business needs reliable systems. It also needs to give people enough freedom to respond to guests. Restaurant-smart companies give staff room to make decisions and try ideas. Because people feel trusted, they take more responsibility for their work. But these companies may lack strong support in accounting, purchasing, and human resources.

Corporate-smart companies have those systems and controls, which often make them more profitable. But each control can limit the freedom of staff serving guests. When staff cannot use their judgment, they become less creative in their work. Guests notice the difference. A successful business manages its finances carefully while giving staff the freedom to offer personal hospitality.

Will’s father explained this distinction during a conversation about Will’s career. He suggested checking where a company’s highest-paid people worked: in the restaurants or in corporate offices. Will loved working for Danny Meyer, whose company then had four restaurants. His father respected what Will had learned there. But he wanted Will to learn the systems of a larger organization, too. He explained his reasons rather than simply giving instructions, and Will later did the same when leading his own teams.

Trust the Process

Will left Tabla for Restaurant Associates to learn the other side of running a business. He admired Danny Meyer’s example, but learning from Hani helped him see more possibilities for his career. Restaurants have narrow profit margins, so knowing how to manage costs and run the business matters alongside knowing how to care for guests. Will argues that the alarming statistics about restaurants failing in their first year have more to do with owners not understanding the business side than with restaurants being inherently difficult to run.

Learning the business means starting with everyday tasks. Even polishing a wine glass teaches standards that someone directing the work needs to understand. Skipping steps may help someone reach a senior role sooner, but it leaves gaps in their knowledge. Doing the work teaches things that overseeing it cannot.

Sometimes Control Stifles Creativity

Former navy captain David Marquet describes a common problem: people at the top have authority but lack the information they need. Frontline workers have that information, but no authority to act on it. Keeping the two apart leads to worse decisions. Corporate controls cause harm when they stop people doing the work from acting on what they know.

Too much control also makes people less committed to their work. Will experienced this himself. After losing his authority, he found it harder to put his full effort into twelve-to-fourteen-hour days carrying out someone else’s plans. Knowing that his judgment was not trusted changed how he felt about the job.

Trusting people does not mean accepting employees who harm the team. Guidara is firm about employees like Felix: being charming with regular guests does not excuse damage to the team’s culture. Their relationships with guests may seem valuable. But those relationships do not justify the harm everyone else has to bear.

Enlightened Hospitality means caring for managers as well as hourly employees. Everyone shares responsibility for taking care of one another; it is not only the boss’s duty. Managers should not automatically win disputes or dismiss loyal employees on a whim. But they need support to do their jobs well, because that helps them care for their teams.

Find the Balance Between Control and Creativity

A business needs both sound systems and freedom for frontline staff. Financial controls protect the business, while staff need enough authority to make thoughtful choices for guests. Giving up all control would leave the business poorly managed. Keeping every decision at the top would waste the judgment of the people doing the work.

Creative choices can help meet both needs. Spending carefully on most things leaves money for a few purchases that seem extravagant but improve an experience far more than their cost would suggest.

The Rule of 95/5

MoMA’s ice cream cart and blue spoons showed Will how to combine careful spending with generosity. He was responsible for the cart at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Using MoMA’s reputation, he got excellent gelato at a steep discount and a beautiful cart for free. Those savings left him money for unusually expensive, carefully designed blue spoons. He believed this small detail would make getting an ice cream feel special.

This became the Rule of 95/5: manage 95 percent of spending with great care, then use the remaining 5 percent for choices that seem extravagant. The business can afford those purchases because it manages the rest of the budget tightly. Their value depends on how much they improve the recipient’s experience.

At Eleven Madison Park, the team applied this rule to wine pairings. Instead of dividing the budget evenly among courses, sommeliers chose slightly less expensive but still excellent wines for most of the meal. They knew the wines well and had a wide selection in the cellar, so they could make those choices without sacrificing quality. The savings paid for a rare, more expensive glass at the end, such as Grand Cru Burgundy. Guests got a surprise they would seldom find in an ordinary pairing.

The team benefited, too. Will worked to reduce the high costs of staff turnover and overtime, then spent generously a few times a year. The restaurant might close for a team-building retreat or host a staff party with a DJ and cases of Dom Pérignon. These celebrations stayed within the budget because spending remained controlled during the rest of the year.

Pursuing a True Partnership

Will wanted equal respect for the kitchen’s work and the dining room’s contribution. No matter how talented a chef was, he did not want to work with someone who treated hospitality as less important. He wanted a partner who respected what the dining-room team did.

His father helped him focus on what he wanted by asking, “What’s your dream job?” The question followed his father’s familiar advice: run toward what you want instead of running away from what you don’t want. Dissatisfaction can explain why a job feels wrong. Naming the work and partnership you want gives you a clearer reason to choose what comes next.