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cover of episode It’s Fast Company Innovation Festival this week!

It’s Fast Company Innovation Festival this week!

2023/9/20
logo of podcast Most Innovative Companies

Most Innovative Companies

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Chip Wade
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Josh Christensen
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Yasmin Gagne
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Yasmin Gagne: 本期节目讨论了美国汽车工人联合会(UAW)的罢工,以及好莱坞演员和编剧的罢工。这些事件凸显了美国劳工运动的现状以及工会力量的兴起。德鲁·巴里摩尔在编剧协会罢工期间恢复节目录制,随后又道歉,也引发了广泛关注。此外,节目还讨论了联合国大会期间的气候抗议活动,以及乌克兰总统泽连斯基对美国总统拜登的访问。这些事件都反映了当前全球政治和社会经济环境的复杂性。 Josh Christensen: 本期节目涵盖了多个重要事件,包括美国汽车工人联合会(UAW)的罢工,好莱坞演员和编剧的罢工,以及联合国大会期间的气候抗议活动。这些罢工事件是近期一系列劳工行动中的最新一起,反映了工会活动和支持度的上升。德鲁·巴里摩尔在编剧协会罢工期间恢复节目录制,随后又道歉,也引发了广泛关注。此外,乌克兰总统泽连斯基对美国总统拜登的访问,以及他提出的10点和平计划,也反映了持续的乌克兰战争及其对国际关系的影响。TikTok进军电子商务领域,以及逆戟鲸攻击人类事件,也反映了当前社会和经济环境的变化。

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The episode covers recent news in business and tech, including the United Auto Workers deal, the UN General Assembly meeting, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's visit to the US, Drew Barrymore's reversal on resuming production during the WGA strike, TikTok's pivot to e-commerce, and orcas possibly hunting humans.

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Welcome to Most Innovative Companies. I'm your host, Yasmin Gagne, joined by my producer, Josh Christensen. Hey, Josh. Hey, Yas. So we're going into the festival, finally. Ooh, yeah, it's Monday when we're recording this, which means if you're listening to this, we're already dead.

So because we've got our Innovation Festival going on this week, this episode is going to be a little shorter than normal. And just the two of us. And just the two of us. Until your interview later. Until a Segment B interview. Which was recorded months ago. Not. Days ago. Days ago. Mere days ago, I spoke with Chip Wade. He's the CEO of Union Hospitality Group. They own a ton of fine dining restaurants in New York from Gramercy Tavern to Union Square Cafe. And they also own Daily Provisions, which is a bunch of coffee shops. And they also own

We chatted about growing up in the hospitality industry. Josh, have you ever worked a service job? Have I? No, that's not a question. I have. Yes, I have. Oh, a lot. What was the worst place and the worst thing that happened to you? God, the worst thing and the worst place that happened to me. Well, okay. This may be the worst one. So during college and the summer after college, I worked as a line cook at a beach club in Rhode Island. So summer job. Line cook. Line cook, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. No, I have skills. Okay.

I know, yeah, full to bare realness. Can you crack an egg with one hand? Yeah, I can crack two eggs with one hand into a thing. Yeah, no, I'm a good cook. I'm a legitimately good cook. But it was a very toxic work environment, and the worst thing that happened, there was a lot of drinking on the shift, as happens in a lot of hospitality jobs, if you know, and this was not exactly like a regulated restaurant, a beach club in Rhode Island. Right.

The sous chef and the executive chef at the end of one particularly tense night got into a literal fight, like a physical fight on the line, like a fry oil next to them. Oh, yeah. Nothing went terribly wrong, but it was one of those moments where like face crack to the extreme where you're like, OK, we need to take this a little more seriously. And like just nobody talked about it.

after that. Did you ever get into a fight? No. No, look at me. Sad. Lame. I'm not a fighter. We've talked extensively about my musical theater knowledge. Do you think I'm getting into physical fights? Were you? I did pretty much every job in restaurants in New York and in Rhode Island. I used to do bartending, waiting tables. Did you work in hospitality? No, I've done retail.

Oh, okay. I've done a fair amount of retail. That's its own kind of fresh howl. Yeah. So I was at Abercrombie & Fitch in its heyday, which was brutal. Oh, yeah. You've told me about this. Oh, the classic Abercrombie & Fitch days. But I sort of knew that I somehow would die if I worked in hospitality.

Honestly, it's a particular type of, I don't even know how to describe it. It's its own world. Yeah. It's a very specific world. There's a really great TikTok guy who does like restaurant, like skits and restaurant culture stuff called Buddy Bistro. That's really fantastic that you should check out. I'm going to check that out. Everyone check out Buddy Bistro because if you ever worked in hospitality, this gets a dead on.

Well, Chip Wade has a few stories about that in our interview. But first of all, let's just do a quick roundup of news and business and tech. And Josh, I want you to start. Tell me a little bit about the United Auto Workers deal. Well, I think it's the obvious story of the week that we should start with. And it comes in a long line of strikes this past summer. We've talked about WGA, DAW.

the SAG-AFTRA strike, and this is the latest. - All the strikes to me, like I read about them, I read the news obviously, 'cause I work at a magazine, but like it all melds into one to me. - It seems like this has been like a long trend of strikes going back to, if you remember like the

Janice versus the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Yes, I read that. Yeah. And what world? Do you remember? No, there was a big deal. I was at WNYC when that happened and we did a lot of coverage on it. But it was basically like one of the biggest anti-union decisions the Supreme Court ever made. And it was around the time when a lot of conservative politicians were pushing for right to work. And I feel like since then,

There has been this huge swell of union activity as a backlash to that decision. I mean, you had teacher strike after teacher strike. I just I think it was Kentucky. You had Oklahoma. You've had it across.

The country, huge teacher strikes. I think you had a number of different industries. And obviously this summer is the latest. And union support is at an all-time high. It's a good thing, but it's also at a time where like legislatively there's not a lot of support for it. On the more frivolous side of that line, we had a very tearful apology from one Drew Barrymore. Oh my God, this is...

Full cringe. It's very real, the things that have happened. But yeah, this Drew Barrymore, have you been keeping up with this? Kind of. So I know her grandma was somehow also responsible for screwing over union employees, you know. Yeah, that goes back. I mean, this is a huge history lesson. Of course, being a theater nerd that I am, I am up to date on all of the maturations. That is the Actors' Equity Association, which if you don't know is the union for stage actors.

actors and stage managers, mostly on Broadway and across the country in theater. Well, Ethel Barrymore, famous stage and screen actress from the golden age of theater, who is Drew Barrymore's grandparent, was, I think, the president of Actors' Equity at one time. And essentially, it's a long story that I don't have all the details on, but basically, like,

She made a decision and a deal with Warner Brothers that cut out movie actors who were not unionized at the time from joining Actors' Equity, which led to the creation of SAG, which is a whole... So this union-busting family motif is getting a lot of play right now. Do you think she issued a tearful apology on stage that we just haven't recorded for posterity? I mean, that would be amazing if that was there. What was the equivalent of a notes app post on...

on your Instagram in the 1940s. I can't possibly think what that would be. I don't know, maybe like one of those airplanes that write the sky message in smoke. Hashtag sorry. Sorry, lol. Ethel Barrymore, what a troll.

We've been keeping up with like the WGA stuff and that all summer and like Drew Barrymore seems to have become like the lightning rod for this sort of thing despite the fact that like the view's been going all summer without writers. Yeah. Whoopi's been crossing picket lines the entire summer.

I think Bill Maher is... He's restarting. Nobody cares about Bill Maher. I know. I was like, okay. This is the least worst thing Bill Maher has done. I still don't really understand his deal. It's fine. Don't explain it to me. I don't get it. It's fine. I could not possibly explain it to you. He just seems angry all the time. Oh my God. Yeah. Drew's speaking at our festival, we believe. Is she? I mean, you'll know sooner than us when you're listening to this. I thought she...

pulled out. I don't know if she's pulled out yet. Well, let's find out. We're going to find out together. And I will say this, up until very recently, I was a huge fan of Drew Barrymore. I think that's probably why she's getting such backlash is because there's, why Bill Maher's not getting backlash because Drew Barrymore's like, oh, this beloved person, she also came out at the beginning of the strikes and was like full in support and then it's like, so this is sort of like a double-edged sword where I think people expect Bill Maher to be shitty. People are like,

I don't know your deal, but you seem bad. Yeah, exactly. Anyone who has slicked back hair in the year 2023 has made some choices in their life. To move on to something else, there was a huge climate protest yesterday because it's the UN General Assembly meeting next week. Yeah. This week. The UN General Assembly meets this week. As you're listening to this, it's already happened. There are

a number of climate agenda things. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is coming to visit President Biden. Yes. Asking for help on a 10-point peace proposal. Good luck. It's, I mean, the Ukraine thing has really kind of fallen out of, like, the day-to-day consciousness because I think it's just, in the most cynical sense, it's just a fatigue thing. Yeah, totally. But it's just like... It's still going on. It's still going on and it's still, the loss of life is still piling up and it's tough to, like,

wrap your mind around it, honestly, at this point? Like, how many years deep are we? It also just sounds like a historical thing that happened. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I was actually in our elevators coming up to the office this morning. And Vladimir Zelensky was in Seven World Trace. My man Vlad was there. No, but there's like a little screen that displays headlines. Yeah. And one that kind of made me laugh was like, Russia says that what everybody's saying about them is wrong. Okay. It was like,

I think it was in response like a U.N. statement being like they're like trying to like conquer Ukraine. So Russia is essentially like that toxic guy in college that people turn on and then does like stand up comedy. It's like I'm just misunderstood. That's Russia. No one wants to listen to me anymore.

And then we've got two more frivolous points. You can now shop on TikTok without leaving the app. Oh, that's great. You're going to buy more Shein shirts. I know it. I'm just, I get so many Shein ads delivered to me. You know what I'm also getting? And I don't know what this says about

to me, the purple toothpaste ad. - I've never seen that before. - You've never seen that? - No. - It's basically like this ad where it's a toothpaste that's supposed to whiten through color theory. - I would fall for that. - And it's basically this purple toothpaste. - I'd fall for that immediately. - Yeah, but it's basically this guy like, "Look what happens when I take this banana

And it's the guy who I think invented it who's like not charismatic at all. That's awesome. During the commercial. When I put it behind this purple screen, look, it's white. This is the theory behind her toothpaste. So it's just like, I don't know if this is how cleaning stains works. No, I feel like that sounds really incorrect, but that's fine. Put some purple on your teeth and they'll be white. If it made me look good, I'd probably buy it.

That being said, I have bought it. No, I haven't. I have not bought it. My ads are so funny because they're all like, look at Chanel's latest collection. And I'm like, I don't have this kind of money. Like, what do you think I'm... The super expensive sort of thing? It's always like, you know, buy this Cartier watch. And I'm like, who do you

- What is this? What are you searching? Are you a person who like searches for luxury goods just to see like the kind of equivalent of looking at million dollar houses on Zillow? I do that all the time and I think that affects my search history. People think I can afford a home. It's silly.

I'm a millennial. I can't afford a home. Our last one is that orcas are attacking people now. I would like to say still attacking people. Did they ever stop attacking people? So before people thought it was play, but now they may actually be hunting. Okay.

So this is basically the plot of a number of horror movies. There's just been a string of sea-based horror movies over time. Sharknado. Sharknado, obviously. The Meg is the most recent one. What's the one where LL Cool J... Deep Blue Sea. Yes. This one is terrific. This is exactly what I was going to go to, and this is why we host this podcast. The sharks got too smart. They started increasing the brain power of the sharks, and...

And it's got the Father Skarsgard in there and Samuel L. Jackson and I forget the main characters. Saffron Burrows. Saffron Burrows. It's terrific. And then LL Cool J is just like the cook at this deep sea rig where they're training these sharks to be smart. And he's got a bird with him that he talks to all the time.

And pivotal scene in that movie is when LL Cool J realizes the sharks were smart enough to turn on an oven. Yes!

Apparently some otters have also been attacking people. Apparently it happened to like one actress. Which actress? I don't know, but I write it on the Daily Mail, so I know this is reliable stuff. Stop reading the Daily Mail. But apparently it's because we're also like encroaching. No, we're encroaching on their habitat. Well, yeah, that's obviously. Yeah, but I love watching all the pictures of like there was an otter this summer who kept stealing people's surfboards. It was...

I was like obsessed with her. That's fantastic. She'd like take a bite out of them and then grab it. Paddle away. That's terrific, though. I mean, I would I need to look up those videos. I'll send you I'll send you pictures. We're going to take a quick break, followed by my interview with Union Square Hospitality Group CEO Chip Wade about staying cool in a hot kitchen.

Before I ask you about your career and about how you got to this point, I guess I want to talk a little bit about Union Square Hospitality Group, because I think the name may not be familiar to a lot of our listeners, but your brands and your restaurants probably are. Just give me an overview of kind of what you oversee. I am the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group. I'm the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group.

which is a hospitality company founded and created by Danny Meyer. Our roots are in, as you noted, these great fine dining chef driven restaurants. I'll name a few like Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern to give you a couple of examples.

In addition to these just lovely curated fine dining restaurants, we have a brand called Daily Provisions. Oh, they make the best. I know they're not called donuts. They're called something else. So good. We're very excited about that concept. We have four of them today and a fifth one that is scheduled to open within the next three weeks in Brooklyn, in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn on Friday.

Oh my God, that's where I used to live. Okay, I'll be walking over there. That's not too far. So we're very excited about that. So we have our fine dining restaurants. We have daily provisions. We have a growing consulting practice in business. And then we have a very large catering and event business. So those are the four revenue streams that we have all under the umbrella of Union Square Hospitality Group. Now, how did you get your start in the restaurant industry? At first,

At 15 years old, I walked into a Dunkin' Donuts. I grew up outside of Philadelphia. And so I got my very first job essentially cleaning the parking lot, sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets of this franchise business. And you still wanted to work in hospitality after that.

Yeah, I mean, I just really enjoyed people. I enjoyed serving people. I fell in love with food even before that, watching my grandmother cook. And so the confluence of love for food and just the love of being of service and hospitality, I was hooked right away. How did you end up at Union Square Hospitality Group? Going from Dunkin' Donuts. After graduating from high school, I went to culinary school.

Johnson & Wales. And so I spent time in French restaurants as a sous chef and, you know, just learning all the basics of being a great culinarian. Immediately went back and got a hospitality degree. But I grew up, I tell people, in TGI Fridays.

I started as a restaurant manager and spent 14 years of my career in TGI Fridays. Wow. I love that. Yeah. Multiple different disciplines. I was an operator and a multi-unit supervisor. I ran domestic HR. And I also spent three years in new business development for TGI Fridays. The second, I'd say, big period of my career was with Darden Restaurants. Mm-hmm.

who owned Capital Grill and Olive Garden at the time, Red Lobster, et cetera. In 2019, January of 2019, I had a very comfortable and relaxing conversation with Danny Meyer, and that's how I landed here. What was the transition like? I mean, that's not to say that like Capital Grill is obviously not fast food, but I think the world of fine dining is pretty different. Sure. What was that transition like for you? You know, I would say...

say it was different. So how about that? Right. I think when you think of our restaurants, again, these fine dining chef driven chef centric, it was an adjustment to getting used to the autonomy and freedom and creativity that our chefs have. Right. Coming from a larger chain, I ran Red Lobster as COO and EVP.

There are 704 red lobsters in North America. And for the most part, the menu is the same, whether you're in Austin, Texas or Altoona, Pennsylvania. And the transition number one for me was just understanding and being respectful of giving the chefs, our great chefs, their creativity and the autonomy to continue to do what they do best.

You know, I remember interviewing the chairperson of Universal's filmed entertainment group, so Universal Studios, and we talked a lot about what it's like to work with creatives. I mean, she was obviously very diplomatic about it, but I can imagine working with, you know, directors and, you know, people with artistic flair is kind of hard to manage. What's it like to work with chefs who really have their own temperament and are sort of masters of their kitchen or restaurants?

I love it, right? I really enjoy as someone who, again, began his career in the discipline of culinary arts. Like for me, it was in many ways coming back home. So I love this creative sparring with our chefs and with our leaders.

I love how they bring new ideas, new menus, new recipes. And what we've been able to do over my four and a half years with the organization is to keep that level of creativity intact, while at the same time trying to bring in some discipline and some structure that enables us to execute better and also helps to fuel growth. What does that discipline and structure look like?

So I'll give you a very simple example. When I joined the company, we had 21 different SKUs for extra virgin olive oil. A chef would go to Italy or Tuscany or Greece and they would find a great vendor and they'd say, oh, I want to bring that back to my restaurant.

you know, mind you, we only had 16 restaurants, right? So we had, we had, it's like guys pick one. Yeah. So I said, so what if we only gave you the freedom and going from 21 to 10? Now, you know, we had Daniel Helm on the podcast recently and we talked about this as well, which is like,

One of the biggest sort of pieces of news that rocked the food world is obviously Noma, the restaurant in Copenhagen, closing. You know, it closed for a number of reasons, but it really highlighted the fact that it's very difficult to operate a fine dining establishment and make the economics work. I'd love to hear you talk about those sort of economic challenges that are kind of unique to that type of restaurant and also how you're sort of making it work and solving those problems.

I would say a couple of things. There have been and will continue to be economic challenges that face the fine dining restaurant space. COVID and the pandemic compounded those costs.

And so for us, particularly in large urban cities and everything that we operate, sans a few businesses, is in Manhattan. So the first thing is just the high cost of real estate and rent. Yeah, you got to sell a lot of lobster to make your rent. That's right. Exactly. Exactly.

So that is a dynamic that has been part of, you know, kind of landscape specifically in large urban cities. I think there was this notion that rents would stabilize as a result of the pandemic. They have not, right? Landlords continue. You see that both on the residential, but you see it in our space commercial. The second area, which is always ongoing factor is the cost of labor. The

Cost to run a fine dining restaurant with sous chefs and executive chefs and the number of line cooks.

if you will, culinarians that it takes vis-a-vis someone operating in fast casual or casual dining is exponentially higher. And then the third cost, which we never want to deviate from, is the quality of product that we serve, right, and bring into our restaurants. We have great partners and great vendors everywhere.

that we utilize in New Jersey and upstate New York and Delaware. For us at Union Square Hospitality Group, we're going to continue to use these special relationships and vendors, understanding that we have to at times pay a bit more, but the quality of the product that we get and ultimately serve to the guests, it's exponentially better. That makes a lot of sense. I want to talk

a little bit about what you were saying with paying staff and line cooks. I think for a long time in the fine dining world, there was sort of this, you know, a lot of people sort of didn't get paid or took things on as unpaid internships. And that was same as in journalism, let's be clear. But it stops a lot of people from maybe lower income backgrounds, maybe people of color kind of gaining an entry into that world. Is that something that you think about? Do you see that changing? How do you handle it at your organization?

So at our organization, I think we are extremely competitive with our hourly rates. We want to be. And it's under the headline of getting the best and brightest, if you will. And so we want to be competitive. We also have revenue share for our culinarians and for our porters and dishwashers.

So that they get to win when the restaurant wins. And one of the things that we talk about, we're very fond of saying here at USHG is hospitality is a team sport. And if hospitality is a team sport, then everyone should be part of the successes of the restaurant.

That, coupled with our wonderful culture, allows us to retain the best and the brightest. We've seen a bunch of movies come out. I think, like, I personally love The Menu. I think we're all watching The Bear. Yeah. How do you make sure that culture in a kitchen is...

okay like that it's not Gordon Ramsay's you know Hell's Kitchen all the time yeah I gotta say I love the menu of the movie I've seen it three times and I enjoyed it it's so good so tightly written yeah exactly

Well, I would say culture begins clearly with Danny, our founder, the executive chairman, and then connected to me and the senior leadership team, first and foremost. I think secondarily, we have a set of beliefs and behaviors that we talk about each and every day when we're onboarding new employees. We have these posters that are throughout the restaurant centered around these behaviors, which tie to a very strong and vibrant culture.

But beyond that, we have to celebrate and recognize when our leaders, both at the home office and in our restaurants, deliver on those behaviors every single day. And when that happens, it's a way of ensuring that the culture stays alive. Now, I will add that we also embed a number of town hall meetings.

Three weeks ago, we took our chefs and GMs off site for a two day retreat. That's both team building. It's celebratory. It's fun. But it's also setting the expectations for the next fiscal year. And so lastly, just staying engaged with our employees, our leaders is the way that we keep the culture vibrant and alive.

You've worked in restaurants for a long time at this point. And what is the craziest thing that's ever happened in or around a kitchen? I've had more than my share of guests, not at USHG, irate guests come into the kitchen. Really? Yeah. I've seen that movie before.

Some of the oddest things that happen in a restaurant are usually centered around the new opening process, right? So when you're opening a new restaurant, the community is so excited. The crowds are bigger than you think, and they're so excited, but the guests at times forget that the

staff is new and green and they're still trying to figure it out. Right. I was opening a restaurant. This is a good 20 years ago. A server came back to the kitchen and I was working in the kitchen and says, I need an update on table 24. And I see, okay, table 24. And I look a little further. I see a second table 24. And then I see a third table 24. Nope.

which made sheer chaos. The guests, the first and second parties could not wait. And they ended up leaving. And we sat the table a third time. And so again, most of the craziest stories are centered around new restaurant openings. Yeah. They're like small administrative things that are just like a nightmare because

people are involved, right? Exactly right, yeah. And you know, kitchens are famously a sort of high-pressure environment, especially at fine dining establishments. Do you have any personal techniques for de-escalating situation, taking yourself out of a situation, you know, staying calm? What's it been like for you? Yeah, in my younger days, because you're right, kitchens are stressful, high-tense, high-pressure, particularly on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In those most stressful periods,

I would simply call, well, I would call a timeout. I would head into the freezer and just bellow out the loudest yell possible. That's awesome. Kind of recompose myself and then head back to the line. Right.

That worked for me. I love that. There's also this idea of like, I like to have fun. So adding humor, adding jocularity, creating a sense of fun, even at the peak of stressfulness, I think helps to bring some of the tension down.

Totally. Now, obviously, we spent a bunch of time talking about your time in the kitchen, but you're a corporate guy now. You're the man. Tell me about your approach to kind of building leadership teams. How do you find the best C-suite leaders, especially at a company that's so focused on food? Do you look for people who may be trained in culinary arts? I look for leaders. If they have culinary and restaurant operations in background, it is a huge plus. My chief marketing...

officer, was a host and a waitress in a restaurant, both in high school and college. Chief technology officer and chief people officer both spent time as in the hourly level, as well as management level in restaurants.

And they're able to bring this very unique, profound understanding of operations to their respective discipline. To the second part of your question, what do I look for? I look for leaders that have what I describe as the capacity to lead, the commitment to lead, and then the character to lead. Right. All three are essential leaders.

And when I find leaders that know restaurant and have actually done the roles, they have the capacity, commitment and character to lead, then I feel like we're on our way of building a fantastic team. I once worked in high school at a frozen yogurt shop and I'm proud to say I was definitely their worst employee. Dear God.

The other guy who worked with me was so much better and more efficient. But you got to eat all the free yogurt that you wanted. I know. And you know what? I still love it. You know, when we talk about the future of fine dining, we've seen a few fine dining establishments, laundromats.

launch brands in grocery stores, for example. You've had Union Square Hospitality Group open other concepts like daily provisions that are still upscale, but for instance, I can afford to buy a curler. I can't really afford Dating Gramercy Tavern. Tell me about how you think about the future of Union Square Hospitality Group. Yeah, so I got to tell you, I am enthusiastically excited about the future of USHG. Again, with four and a fifth one soon to open,

We're excited about how that restaurant, that brand has resonated with New Yorkers.

And we do aspire to, in a very moderate, slow growth, to test the waters to see how the brand will be perceived in other communities. Are you trying to make another Shake Shack? Well, I think it's way too early for me or for anyone else to say, are we trying to create another Shake Shack? What we have said is...

If we were to create another Shayshack, we have a wonderful roadmap and a model to follow that Danny and Randy Garuti created, number one. Number two, I just want to emphasize this for all your listeners. Again, it's too early for us to determine, but...

We do want to continue to see how well the brand is going to be received in the new communities where we go. What I can tell you, in addition to Court Street in Brooklyn, that we have aspirations to go to and find a location on the Upper East Side. And so we will continue to try both initially here in New York over the next 18 months, but later past that,

in other communities, whether that's Philadelphia or Princeton or Boston, et cetera. So we're both New Yorkers and I have to ask you, where do you like to eat? Outside of our own restaurant? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just tell me like, A, like weeknight dinners. Like, I want to hear where you go and what you like to eat.

I like Dig, right? Just if I want a great lunch. I think they're consistently good and I enjoy the vibe there that you can just kind of go in there fairly quickly. I love Minetta Tavern. I think that is just a really cool space to be in. I like- Do you get the burger there? I do get the burger. I've gotten the steak there. Mm-hmm.

That's like a high-low combo. Yeah, a little mixture of both. Yeah, exactly. I will add one more to my favorites. The best ice cream in the city is Cafe Pano. Cafe Pano? Where is that? It is in Gramercy area, kind of Gramercy Park. It's a block and a half away from our Union Square Cafe. Oh, do you go there all the time? Well, I love ice cream, so I'm going to say yes. Yeah, yeah.

You got to tell me, what are some of the technologies that you think we're going to see? I oversee our most innovative companies dining and hospitality every year. And I know a bunch that have been talked about a lot. But what do you see at the forefront? I think on the forefront of that is just how do we get data about the consumers that

as they're making their reservations, not just their name and number and email, but preferences. And I think that you're going to see someone take a reservation or make a reservation, and there'll be questions like, you know, what's your favorite bourbon?

Or do you prefer red or white? And so when a server approaches the table, not only will she or he know my name, hi, Mr. Wade, and welcome to X restaurant. We have a couple of great bourbons because I understand that you love bourbon. And I'd like to share that with you. That's vastly different than today when a server says, what can I get you to drink? So when you can start a dining experience by intimately knowing the guest,

and the technology and the data collection will allow companies in the future to provide better service and more hospitality in their experience. Well, this was great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you. I appreciate it. And that's it for Most Innovative Companies. Our show is produced by Avery Miles and Blake Odom. Mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres and our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate and review and we'll see you next week.