SOON AFTER OPENING HIS NEW RESTAURANT in the heart of New York City , Will Guidara was excited to be included as one of the “ 50 Best Restaurants in the World .” Until he heard Eleven Madison Park ’ s rank : 50th place .

Of course , it was an honor just to make the esteemed list : It recognizes technically excellent dishes , near-perfect service , and a gorgeous dining room . But Will shared that he had to admit to himself many restaurants achieve those standards of excellence . He realized Eleven Madison Park had not yet pursued anything to set itself apart , while earlier winners were unreasonable in their pursuit of product and innovation . He vowed to be equally unreasonable in pursuit of people and experience . At his Town Hall appearance at the 2023 ISPA Conference , Will Guidara shared several lessons he learned on the way to becoming the number one restaurant in the world : l Unreasonable hospitality is not “ great service .” Service is part of the product . Food , service , design — they are simply ingredients in the recipe of human experience . l Hospitality is about making people feel seen . So you have to treat guests as individuals , not commodities . “ One size fits one ” gestures are always the most powerful . l We should take what we do seriously — but we need to stop taking ourselves too seriously . We should avoid letting our own personal standards get in the way of giving guests the experience they desire . l Make the experience as much as possible as if you ’ d l

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l invited people into your own home . Identify every element of the guest experience . ( The Eleven Madison Park team cataloged 120 of them in a single restaurant visit !) How can you make it special ? The best thing we can do to keep our companies fully staffed is to make the work meaningful again . Providing unreasonable hospitality to guests has a side benefit : Team members who have been given autonomy and creative freedom feel valued . De-stigmatize asking for help . Getting your team to rally around a shared goal is an amazing motivational technique and will improve your company culture . Give an “ annual state of the company address ” to your team . It sets expectations and lets them decide whether they want to continue . You want a team filled with people who choose to be there . n

TOWN HALL WITH WILL GUIDARA AND PATRICK HUEY ( MODERATOR )

“ Try to be a bit more unreasonable — try to give them an experience that will last for a lifetime . It will help your business — but it will also make everyone around you feel really , really good .”

— WILL GUIDARA

EDITOR ’ S NOTE : Scot T . Gillies , executive editor at ISPA , sat in on Will Guidara ’ s town hall and chose the above highlight to share .

JULY 2023 n PULSE 23