When you create a hospitality-first culture, everything about your business improves—whether that means finding and retaining great talent, turning customers into raving fans, or increasing your profitability.

The cornerstone of the company’s culture was a philosophy Danny called Enlightened Hospitality, which upended traditional hierarchies by prioritizing the people who worked there over everything else, including the guests and the investors. This didn’t mean the customer suffered; in fact, the opposite. Danny’s big idea was to hire great people, treat them well, and invest deeply into their personal and professional growth, and they would take great care of the customers—which is exactly what they did.

Danny has always understood how language can build culture by making essential concepts easy to understand and to teach. He is brilliant at coining phrases around common experiences, potential pitfalls, and favorable outcomes.

In truth, hiring was hard before we got the culture of the restaurant fully dialed in. When we had an opening, I’d find someone good to join the team—not necessarily impeccably trained, but energetic and enthusiastic about the mission. But even if that person was all charged up when they got hired, the residual negativity of some of their colleagues would eventually infect them. The fine-dining crew was still being snooty, and some of the remaining members of the old guard weren’t ever going to get on board. Three or four times, I hired someone I thought showed promise. But they’d last only a month before the flame of their enthusiasm dimmed and died, and then they’d quit. So the next time a position opened up, I didn’t race to fill it. Instead, I waited until another position came open, and then another, and then hired three great people, all at the same time. Instead of one new person cupping their hands, trying to protect the tiny flame of their enthusiasm, that little crew brought a bonfire no one could put out.

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.