🍔🍟 What can Fintechs learn from Shake Shack's Danny Meyer
Learn hospitality values and principles from restaurateur Danny Meyer. A top resource for anyone building fintech products.
🍔🍟 What can Fintechs learn from Shake Shack's Danny Meyer
This week I read a fascinating book by restaurateur Danny Meyer: Setting the Table, The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business.
Danny is a pioneer in customer centricity and the visionary behind some of New York’s most acclaimed restaurants, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, and Shake Shack.
What does this have to do with fintech, you ask? A lot (surprisingly!). The book is packed with timeless business lessons and wisdom that are universally applicable - so long as your customers are humans.
What’s in it ⬇️
Hospitality is the Heartbeat of Success
Hospitality isn’t just about serving good food - it’s about making people feel valued.
Danny’s concept of “enlightened hospitality” shifts the focus to creating uplifting experiences for everyone involved: guests, employees, suppliers, and even the community.
“Actually though, food is secondary to something that matters even more. In the end, what’s most meaningful is creating positive, uplifting outcomes for human experiences and human relationships. Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard.”
Are you ready to put your fintech product to a secondary level and prioritise how you make people feel?
Whoever Wrote The Rule…?
Instead of letting conventional wisdom limit him, he reimagines possibilities by reframing assumptions, always asking himself “whoever wrote the rule that said you can’t do x?”
This mindset birthed Shake Shack, a drive-in burger joint in a city where no one drives, proving that breaking the “rules” can lead to revolutionary ideas.
It’s a great reminder: what if the rules we follow aren’t rules at all, but just outdated preconceptions waiting to be challenged?
During my time in banking I’ve asked many existential questions (one of my favourite: why do we need a piece of plastic from another company to debit an account?). “That’s the way it has always been - jog on!” - let’s change that!
Hire for Emotional Intelligence, Not Just Skills
“I love your restaurants and the food is fantastic. But what I really love is how great your people are.”
Danny’s hiring strategy is centred around what he calls “51 percenters”. 51% emotional skills, 49% technical skills.
With this, he prioritises emotional intelligence over technical skills when hiring.
Empathy, optimism, and curiosity to learn are qualities that can’t be taught but are vital for a team to succeed.
This is ever relevant in Fintech too.
Generosity & Serving the Community
A great restaurant doesn’t just serve food; it serves its neighbourhood. Danny’s invests in his local community - from naming restaurants after their locations to partnering with local suppliers and supporting hunger-relief programmes.
This commitment turns restaurants into community landmarks.
Be generous, no just in good times but especially in hard times too.
Acting from a positive and hopeful place, rather than from fear that can ultimately be self-fulfilling. The mindset “We’re just hanging on” perpetuates scarcity. Investing money, imagination, and hard work to create a mind-set of abundance achieves abundance.
Small Gestures, Big Returns
A single act of kindness can ripple out into massive goodwill. Whether it’s reuniting a guest with a lost wallet or simply addressing a late arrival with warmth instead of frustration, Meyer reminds us that going the extra mile isn’t just nice - it’s smart business.
Think about what small, meaningful gestures you could give to your customers. Keep your eyes and ears opened for these opportunities.
Turn Mistakes into Comeback Stories
Danny’s philosophy that “the road to success is paved with mistakes well handled” is a powerful reframe.
His approach to “writing a great last chapter” teaches us to transform errors into opportunities.
When a mistake happens, you can’t undo it, but you can control how the story ends.
By responding with creativity, generosity, and sincerity, you shift the focus from the error to your exceptional response. Danny shared how he turned mishaps into a memorable moments.
It’s not just about damage control; it’s about leaving people with a story they’ll tell – for the right reasons.
Success Lies in Uplifting Relationships
At its core, Setting the Table teaches that long-term success stems from generosity and strong relationships. When a business puts people - both employees and customers - at its centre, loyalty and longevity follow naturally.
This philosophy is a guide not just for hospitality, but for life.
About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com
I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.
I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.