{"id":110558,"date":"2009-12-17T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-17T17:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/37signals.com\/svn\/posts\/2062-lessons-to-learn-from-danny-meyers-shake-shack"},"modified":"2009-12-17T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-17T17:23:00","slug":"lessons-to-learn-from-danny-meyers-shake-shack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/110558","title":{"rendered":"Lessons to learn from Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Getting Real<\/a>-ish lessons from “The Accidental Empire of Fast Food,”<\/a> a story about the success of Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack:<\/p>\n

1. Have an enemy. In Meyer’s case, the enemy is fast food that strips away the human experience.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe whole experience is to cram people into a cookie-cutter space, to feed them as many unhealthy calories as possible \u2014 then get them to leave,\u201d said Mr. Meyer, the president of the Union Square Hospitality Group and the Yoda of Shake Shack. \u201cThat stripping away of human experience? That is where fast food went astray.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrast and compare, then, with the three Shake Shacks in New York City, where patrons are cheerfully welcomed at the counter of a neighborhood-centered, urban-fantasy version of a burger roadhouse. On the menu? Whole-muscle, no-trimmings, fresh-ground, antibiotic-and-hormone-free, source-verified-to-ranch-of-birth, choice-or-higher-grade Black Angus beef.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, \u201cpeople have to wait in line just to place their orders,\u201d Mr. Meyer, 51, said on a recent afternoon. \u201cAfter that? They have to wait for us to cook their orders. And then? We hope they\u2019ll stay awhile, as they eat. To enhance the communal experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

2. Resist growth just for the sake of growth. (Shake Shack is opening more locations now, but slowly and only after years of refusing to expand.)<\/p>\n

\n

The Shake Shack rollout is precedent-shattering for the Union Square Hospitality Group. \u201cWe\u2019ve always resisted expanding anything, ever,\u201d Mr. Meyer said. \u201cWe resisted offers in Las Vegas. We resisted reality TV shows. And it took six years with Shake Shack before we decided to go forth and multiply.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

3. Get real with it, put something out there, and see how people respond.<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Meyer\u2019s accidental empire began with a hot dog cart in 2001, part of an art installation in Madison Square Park. \u201cTo our astonishment, every day, a line would form,\u201d Mr. Meyer said. The cart expanded into a burger stand, \u201cand none of us had any idea that that could be a success.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

4. Keep things simple.<\/p>\n

\n

Shake Shacks \u201care profitable,\u201d Mr. Meyer said. \u201cThey don\u2019t need a robust economy to work. They have a highly focused menu. They are replicable. There is no reservation operation. There is no florist. And it\u2019s a fun thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

5. Focus on quality not quantity.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOur focus is not on how many you do,\u201d [Meyer partner David] Swinghamer said bluntly. \u201cIf we can\u2019t do it right? We won\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Meyer commented that \u201cwe will grow as broadly as we can, without losing the quality, the hospitality, the community. And the sense of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And it’s working. Each of the Manhattan Shacks makes more revenue per location than either McDonald\u2019s or Five Guys Burgers and Fries.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong>
\nChoosing the right things to say no to<\/a> [SvN]
\nDanny Meyer: Hospitality is king<\/a> [SvN]<\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Getting Real-ish lessons from “The Accidental Empire of Fast Food,” a story about the success of Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack: 1. Have an enemy. In Meyer’s case, the enemy is fast food that strips away the human experience. \u201cThe whole experience is to cram people into a cookie-cutter space, to feed them as many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}