EPILOGUE

We arrived home triumphant: seven years of single-minded focus had turned a far-fetched goal, scrawled onto a cocktail napkin, into a reality.

For the first time, we made plans to do a complete renovation of the restaurant. There had been lots of physical changes to the room over the years, but we'd always been making tweaks to what still felt like Danny Meyer's restaurant. It was time for it to become completely, entirely ours.

It was time to start our next chapter.

The renovation meant we'd be closed for a few months. By then we knew that without our team, the restaurant was just four walls, some tables, and a stove. We couldn't afford to lose a single one of them, so we opened a whole new restaurant in the Hamptons-a more casual offshoot, which we called EMP Summer House, and moved the whole group out there with us. That project was both creatively satisfying and commercially successful, not to mention wildly fun.

People have spent a lot of time speculating about why Daniel and I decided to go our separate ways. The truth is simple: we fell out of love. People grow apart. You realize that you and your partner no longer share the same interests, the same prioritiesyou're no longer looking at the world in the same way. Nothing can rob you of what you've shared. But when it's over, it's over.

We reopened Eleven Madison Park in the fall, serving the same streamlined experience we'd debuted the year before, in an elegant room designed exclusively for us. And for a while, everything was just right-until it wasn't.

When Daniel and I realized that the best path forward was to separate, I asked my dad for advice, as I have done during all the

difficult moments in my life. He told me, 'This next year is going to be one of the most challenging of your life. You're going to be faced with countless difficult decisions. Every time you find yourself at a crossroads, I want you to ask yourself what 'right' looks like, then do that.' Then he told me that this advice wasn't always going to be easy to follow because often doing what's 'right' isn't always best for you in the short term.

We spent months trying to figure out how the split should work, but we weren't making much progress. Then one night, we hosted a fundraiser for an organization addressing food insecurity called Rethink Food, launched by one of our former colleagues.

Dividing the company was not simple. By then, we had NoMad Hotels in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas and a fast-casual restaurant in New York called Made Nice. We had EMP Summer House in the Hamptons, EMP Winter House in Aspen, and were working on three brand-new projects: two in London, and one in New York. And, of course, there was still Eleven Madison Park.

The evening was a brilliant success; Neil Patrick Harris emceed, and we raised tons of money for a cause close to my heart. At the very end, after the food had been served and cleared, my friend Jon Batiste sat down behind the piano. I called everyone on the team who was still there out from the kitchen, and the whole crew and I stood in the doorway, watching Jon perform a magical, six-song acoustic set-the last of which was his devastatingly beautiful cover of the Louis Armstrong classic, 'What a Wonderful World.'

In our desire to hold on to part of the company we'd spent the past fourteen years building, we were effectively ripping it apart. 'Right' was allowing the company we'd built together to stay together. 'Right'-as inconceivable, as impossible as it seemedmeant that one of us would have to walk away, from all of it.

I got home late that night. Christina was out of town, so I poured myself a huge, shift-drink-size glass of red wine, and put the recorded version of that song on repeat. I listened to it about two dozen times and refilled my glass at least twice. By the third glass, it was crystal clear what 'right' looked like.

A couple of months later, Daniel and I gathered the team together so I could say goodbye.

I loved Eleven Madison Park. But the Unreasonable Hospitality we'd delivered had nothing to do with the storied room or the chairs or the art or the kitchen or the address. The heart of the company was the team-the collection of individuals I'd surrounded myself with-and the work that we did together every single day, taking care of one another and the people we served. I'll always be proud of the traditions we established, all the wild ideas we brought to life, and the countless people we made happy. I also knew that I could do all of that again, using everything I'd learned at EMP and the principles we developed over the fourteen years I was there.

The global pandemic hit just a few months after I left EMP, and I watched as some of my closest friends and colleagues struggled to keep their businesses alive. A phone call led a small group of us to launch the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which successfully lobbied for federal relief for independent restaurants across America. At a moment when I might otherwise have been sidelined, I was able to act as an advocate for the industry I love-including during a surreal trip to the White House.

Letting go was hard. It's still hard! But I have found catharsis in writing this book-in reliving the journey and relearning the lessons. It has reinforced for me how much I love hospitality, both in service and in leadership.

And as if that wasn't enough to keep me busy, Christina and I also welcomed a new member to our family: our daughter Frankie, named after her extraordinary grandfather. I've spent a lot of the past year at my own kitchen table catering to the most significant VIP of my career, in a high chair for one.

As the world has begun to open back up, I find myself spending time with leaders from many different industries-from the medical field to luxury retail to real estate and beyond. All of them recognize the remarkable power of giving the people on their teams and their customers more than they expect, and every one of them has chosen to be unreasonable in that pursuit. All of them have made the decision to join the hospitality economy-and I hope you will, too.

I APPRECIATE YOU

Writing this book has been one of the great experiences of my life, and as I go through the final edits and work on these last pages I can't help but take a moment to pause and reflect about how appreciative I am for the many people who played such an important role in getting it over the line.

In Simon Sinek I found the best coach I could have ever asked for on this journey. We spent countless days together across a table going page by page through this book, looking for every opportunity to make it just a little bit better. He challenged me, inspired me, encouraged me, and pushed me to create something I would be proud of. His belief in me made me believe in myself.

One of the reasons I chose to work in restaurants was because I don't like working alone; I always do my best work when I'm part of a team. And in Laura Tucker I found the best teammate I could have ever hoped for in writing this book. She helped me take all of the crazy ideas from my head and weave them together into the words on these pages. Her exceptional warmth, unbelievable talent, and endless patience proved to be exactly what I needed through this process. I'll be forever grateful for the many, many hours we spent together bringing this to life.

Adrian Zackheim and Merry Sun at Penguin Random House were such incredible partners to me throughout this process. Their appreciation for what I had to say gave me the confidence to want to say it to the world.

No one knows better than a restaurateur how many people, working tirelessly behind the scenes, it takes to bring an idea to life.

I'll forever be grateful to David Black for being by my side and supporting me all of these years. He is one of the warmest and most caring people I know-and an absolute pit bull when he needs to be. It brings me so much joy to have him in my corner.

I'm so thankful for the amazing hospitality that was extended to me by the amazing team at PRH and Optimism Press: Kirstin Berndt, Ellen Cipriano, Linda Friedner, Tara Gilbride, Jen Heuer, Katie Hurley, Brian Lemus, Andrea Monagle, Niki Papadopoulos, Jessica Regione, Mary Kate Skehan, Laila Soussi, Margot Stamas, Sara Toborowsky, and Veronica Velasco. Their passion for the craft and attention to detail was inspiring.

Tom Clifton spent an extraordinary amount of time lending me his thoughtful perspectives, truly making this a better book, as did many other amazing people who were so generous over the last year reading and rereading this manuscript, all the while helping me to make sure it was the best version it could possibly be: Kevin Boehm, John Erickson, Seth Godin, Ben Leventhal, Roger Martin, and Jann Schwarz.

This book wouldn't exist without Danny Meyer, who gave me the foundation upon which I built all my ideas about service and leadership. He opened the doors for so many of my peers in the industry and showed us that the hospitality business is a truly noble profession.

I am lucky to have friends and former colleagues who were so generous with their time as I navigated through the final steps of this process: Katy Foley and Kate Fraser for spreading the word about this book, and Juliette Cezzar for helping to make it beautiful.

And I could not be more grateful for my beautiful family-my wife, Christina, and our daughter, Frankie-for breathing life into my life. . . . I love you blindly, unreasonably, and without end.

I work with an exceptional team-Billy Peelle and Natasha McIrvin-who worked extra hard to keep our company running so that I could have the time and space to focus on this book. And I have found amazing partners and supporters in Michael Forman, Bill Helman, and Gaurav Kapadia. I'm thankful for their passion and dedication, and their belief in me. I am so excited for all that we are building together.