Rapid Response: When you should require vaccinations w/ Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
“You have to preserve your energy because this year has been about pace,” says iconic restaurateur Danny Meyer in his fourth Rapid Response interview. Meyer catches us up on the past seven-plus months of operating in the midst of the pandemic. In the beginning of the summer, when Covid rates were plummeting in New York City, he says he was full of optimism. His restaurants were back to indoor dining, and despite dealing with a limited workforce, “progress is progress.” Then came the Delta variant, leading Meyer to proactively require Covid-19 vaccinations for all staff and guests at his full service restaurants. All of this while overseeing the opening of two new Daily Provision locations and a full-service restaurant in New York City, called Ci Siamo, the three of which had been in development for three years. Meyer also walks us through his February launch of HUGS, a new SPAC that’s led him down a journey of meeting with a wide variety of businesses that share the notion of what he calls enlightened hospitality. As Meyer says, “This year's been a constant test of, can you stick with the progress? Can you win the game, despite getting the setbacks here and there?”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A year and a half later we've lost a couple restaurants, we've lost a jazz club, we've |
| 0:06.0 | lost a lot of people, we went from 2,200 employees, the low point was 45 and now we're back |
| 0:13.5 | up to about 1200. We're marching in the right direction and I'll just be damned if |
| 0:18.8 | we're going to go back again because we've just done too much work to fold our hands. |
| 0:24.5 | This is a really, really hard thing because chances are that some of the people who work |
| 0:29.1 | for us will say I don't want to be vaccinated and they'll look for other jobs. We are now |
| 0:36.4 | bringing mobile vaccination units into our restaurants. I wanted to take a leadership |
| 0:43.5 | role and make it clear that this mattered. |
| 0:52.6 | That's World Renowned Restaurant Tour Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group |
| 0:58.0 | and founder of Shake Shack. This is the fourth time Danny's been on rapid response to talk |
| 1:04.1 | about how the pandemic is impacting the restaurant business, cities like New York and entrepreneurs |
| 1:09.5 | everywhere who've been under the gun. |
| 1:11.9 | I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company founder of the Flux Group and host of Masters |
| 1:17.2 | of Scale Rapid Response. I wanted to talk to Danny again because in late summer he proactively |
| 1:23.3 | announced that his full service restaurants would require COVID-19 vaccination for all |
| 1:28.7 | staff and guests. |
| 1:30.7 | Danny's process in making this decision is an instructive lesson in leadership and |
| 1:35.1 | in forward-looking business strategy. Danny's insights about the mindset required during |
| 1:40.4 | the ups and downs of COVID are also poignant and universal. He knows that his actions, |
| 1:46.3 | his choices and his demeanor resonate to his employees and to broader stakeholders in |
| 1:51.6 | the community. Challenging times provide an opportunity for impact and influence that |
| 1:56.8 | ripples broadly. It's a lesson that all business leaders can learn from. |
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