A great restaurant doesn't distinguish itself by how few mistakes it makes but by how well they handle those mistakes.
Interpretation
Great restaurants succeed not by avoiding mistakes, but by effectively managing them.
This quote highlights the importance of resilience and problem-solving in achieving success, especially in the restaurant industry. Rather than striving for perfection in every aspect, it emphasizes that the true mark of excellence lies in how a business responds to challenges and utilizes mistakes as opportunities for improvement and customer satisfaction.
In practice
In a business meeting discussing quality assurance, this quote could be used to emphasize the value of customer service.
My history has been to grow the roots as deeply as you can before going on to the next thing. That's why it took 10 years to go from Union Square Cafe to Gramercy Tavern, and another 10 years to go from Blue Smoke's first location to its second, and five to go from Shake Shack 1 to Shake Shack 2.
The most important thing you can do is make the distinction between customer service and guest hospitality. You need both things to thrive, but they are completely different.
In an age when so many groups are rolling out restaurants faster than your local baker makes donuts, my goal is that each restaurant feels hand-crafted. That they have their own soul.
Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions - for and to - express it all.
It is not sufficient that I succeed - all others must fail.
Future success is dependent upon and inseparable from the consciousness out of which the actions emanate
I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and obscure city to glory and greatness...whereto all kindreds of the earth will pilgrim.
I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer.
On most lines, making a sale without making a convert does not count for much. Sales made by conviction - by advertising - are likely to bring permanent customers. People who buy through casual recommendations often do not stick
I like guys who know how to implement a strategy. The ones who make a fight look easy. But there's no easy fight, even if you win in 30 seconds, that only means you were able to execute your strategy correctly and induced your opponent to make a mistake. Those are the champions. That's why they are the champions.
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