Philosophy Questions

[ngatti]

As someone who has witnessed the birth of and been so much a part of the the continuing NYC restaurant and culinary revolution, I'd be interested to hear how you view the future of the business in NYC and what part does your decision to open Blue Smoke play in that view. Was Blue Smoke the end result of a natural evolutionary process? Or is it a portent of where you think restaurants in NYC are heading. What part did these views play (or not play) in your decision to open Blue Smoke? Is Blue Smoke intended to take the NYC dining public to a more casual style of dining in general? Is your philosphy taking us to a more casual place in terms of cuisine, price point, styles, etc.... In other words, within a Blue Smoke context, do you think the dining public is headed for a more casual and accessable type of eating and do you think we *ought* to be headed there?

Kind of like Danny Meyer does Clark Wolfe.

Thank you

Nick

[Danny Meyer]

Good, fair question, but you give me way too much credit. I've never opened any restaurant for the purpose of "taking" anyone anywhere. They take so long to conceive and build, I'm not able to look out far enough into the future to know where we'll be.

While Blue Smoke is, I think, timed well for today's post-9/11 and recessionary economy, it was dreamed up in early 1999 when the world felt safer and people felt richer. There was no-comfort-food trend at work here.

I decide to open a restaurant when there's a confluence of the following things:

1. a passion for a kind of food or restaurant and a deep interest to express that passion in a personal, refreshing way.

2. enough good people on our team who are ready to grow (we love cross-fertilizing restaurants with great folks from our other places).

3. a sense that the existing restaurants are on edge and hitting stride (no point in opening something new only to see one of the existing ones lose a step)

4. a good business deal.

That said, we've opened 5 places over the course of 17+ years, which is about 1 every 3.5 years.

As for where the NYC scene is going, I'm not sure. There won't be a lot of daring places debuting this year, because they would have had to be conceived within the past 1-2 years -- a risky time. I think now is an especially good time to re-visit the remarkable crop of restaurants that we're launched in the mid-late 1990's, many of which are so much better now than when they first opened. Wine drinkers are justifiably interested in a brand new bottling, but they know to uncork the stuff that's mature and ready to drink!