Danny Meyer Says Failure Fueled His Shake Shack and Union Square Success
The Shake Shack founder credits gut instinct and hard lessons for his hospitality empire.
Failure, not perfection, built one of the country's most recognizable restaurant empires, according to Danny Meyer, founder of Shake Shack and Union Square Hospitality Group. In a conversation with Hoda Kotb on Making Space with Hoda Kotb, Meyer discussed the setbacks that shaped his career and argued that mistakes are among the most valuable teachers in business.
The discussion centers on Meyer's new memoir, What Could Possibly Go Right?, in which he reflects on the hardest moments of his career and what it took to recover from them. He and Kotb talked through his approach to leadership, including his belief in putting employees first, trusting instinct over convention, and asking the right questions before making major decisions.
Meyer traced how those principles, honed over years of running hospitality businesses, eventually led to the creation of Shake Shack, now a billion-dollar company. Rather than framing his path as a steady climb, he described it as one marked by repeated setbacks that forced him to rethink his approach to running a business and treating staff.
Throughout the appearance, Meyer returned to the idea that resilience, not avoidance of risk, defines lasting success in the restaurant industry. His memoir expands on those same themes, offering an account of the missteps behind his rise as a restaurateur.
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