There’s no replacement for learning a system from the ground up.

In spite of this mushy talk about listening and learning, at heart, I’m a systems guy. And in 2006, EMP desperately needed some systems.

Maybe people don’t notice every single individual detail, but in aggregate, they’re powerful. In any great business, most of the details you closely attend to are ones that only a tiny, tiny percentage of people will notice. But if I could institute a system that demanded that the entire team think carefully about even the most rudimentary of tasks, I was creating a world in which intention was the standard, and our guests could feel it.

The second mistake I’d made was more serious. I’d wanted to make sure every idea we had was communicated properly, so I’d insisted the team learn a spiel. I’d made them performers, ruling out any possibility of a real, quality conversation between them and the guests. Of course the experience had felt inauthentic to Wells; there had been no room for Natasha to connect with him. I had taken away her ability to be herself at the table.

For every course, the table was set with fresh silverware, new wineglasses were placed, food was served and spieled, wine was poured. After we were done eating, the plates were cleared, and the table was crumbed. Those six actions happened for every single course—which meant that over a fifteen-course menu, we were being interrupted ninety times over the entirety of our meal. And that didn’t even include the introduction to the menu or any mid-course check-in.

Ninety times—when our stated goal was to create an environment where people could connect over the table, where, as I had said a thousand times, the service and the food and the environment were mere ingredients in the recipe of human connection. That is unreasonable, but it’s not hospitality.

We’d always believed we should serve what we wanted to receive. Serve only what you want to serve, and you’re showing off. Serve only what you think other people want, and you’re pandering. Serve what you genuinely want to receive, and there will be authenticity to the experience.