Danny Meyer
How the maestro of hospitality forever changed Madison Square Park.
While much has been written about Danny Meyer, perhaps one of the lesser-known accomplishments of this legendary restauranteur, author, founder and executive chairman of the Union Square Hospitality Group, is how he played a major role in the revitalization of Madison Square Park.
To tell the story, however, we need to rewind back to the point where Meyer, a 20-something college graduate, was following a parent-approved plan to become a lawyer. The night before the LSATs, he was dining with his aunt, uncle, and grandmother at an Italian restaurant in New York. As the conversation swirled around law school, it was clear to everyone at the table that Meyer’s
heart was beating to a different rhythm. Law? He remembered feeling like law school was a tailored suit that didn’t quite fit. He told his uncle he wasn’t sure what else he could do. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” his uncle said. “All I’ve ever heard you talk about your whole life is restaurants and food.” By the time dinner was over, Meyer had a new plan.
Following his heart, Meyer enrolled in a restaurant management class and took an entry level assistant manager job at Pesca, an Italian seafood restaurant in the Flatiron. Pesca proved to be the start of Meyer’s journey into the culinary cosmos and from there, he spent four months in Paris and Italy working in kitchens and learning the business (Along the way, he also met Audrey Rayelyn Heffernan, an actress moonlighting as a waitress at Pesca. Their chemistry simmered and in 1988 the couple married).
When he returned to New York in 1985 after his stint in Europe, the 27-year-old Meyer took over the lease of a vegetarian restaurant that was going out of business and opened the Union Square Café. The 16th Street restaurant, named after Union Square Park, became the cornerstone of a dining empire and the first of what would soon become a string of NYC restaurants often named after and adjacent to city parks. From
the beginning, each of Meyer’s restaurants has been designed to be a gold standard of elite customer service — a place where every patron is appreciated and treated with respect.
Inspired by the bistros he saw in France, Meyer told us, “I began to search for a new location that would allow for a glassed-in eating area, one that could be opened up in nice weather and provide diners a park view.” Fate intervened when in 1996, Met Life was on board to revitalize a run-down building they owned on Madison Square Park.
“I got a call, and they described the building as the world’s best-looking tuxedo but told me it needed patent leather shoes at the base.” The “shoes” — which would become Eleven Madison Park — came with a condition, “I would only open a restaurant there if Met Life agreed to join a campaign to help restore the majesty of the park. I wanted a world class restaurant with a beautiful view.” It’s important to note that at the time, Madison Square Park was not in its finest condition.
“I started researching and learning more about the park — which was named after President James Madison and was the home of the original Madison Square Garden, the birthplace of baseball, and in the 1790s, a potters field,” he added. What had once been a bustling hub, however, had fallen into decline and was not a safe place to be after dark, a fact which did not bode well for the neighborhood.
An avid reader, Meyer took note of the teachings from “The Cathedral Within”, by Billy Shore. The book details how early architects were driven to create a place of grandeur even though they knew they would never live long enough to see their buildings finished. Meyer understood that a revitalized park would attract businesses and tourism and help to boost the neighborhood for years to come — its beauty would endure time. He set out to find partners and foster change.
Initially, Meyer tried to work with the city to raise funds to restore the park, but he soon realized that it would require more than the city could realistically provide. “I was not discouraged,” he said. “Instead, I started approaching other stakeholders around the park.” In 2001, with both public and private funds, Meyer co-founded the Madison Square Park Conservancy, with the mission of keeping the park a beautiful and active public space.
The Conservancy worked with Henry Stern, then the city’s park commissioner, who hired Lynden B. Miller, an acclaimed public garden designer to plan and restore the horticulture of the park. They worked on the landscape, added a playground, a dog run, and kiosks for food service. The plan also included gravel walkways that meandered through the park, allowing visitors to enjoy the year-round changes in the greenery — a feature Meyer had loved on his many walks through the green spaces of Paris.
Because Meyer wanted profits from any of the proposed food kiosks to benefit Madison Square Park directly and because the parks department was insisting the profits be placed into a general city parks fund, food service was put on hold. The vision he had, one that again drew inspiration from the parks he frequented in Paris, included
a public green space peppered with permanent eateries where visitors could grab a coffee and a sandwich and sit at a small outdoor table or on a bench and enjoy the weather and the view; profits would be funneled right back into Madison Square Park, part of a larger system to support park maintenance and programming. “The city would not allow us to sign that deal,” he said.
The shift came when the city’s public art fund invited Thai artist Navin Ravenschwankle to create and install a whimsical taxis on stilts art installation in the park. Inspired by a comic book the artist created based on his interviews with New York City cabbies, the “I ❤️ Taxi” installation debuted in 2001 — and while he may not have known it at the time, thrust Danny Meyer and his growing hospitality business into a unique and unforeseen direction.
One of the displays in the exhibit featured a working hotdog cart and Meyer saw it as an opportunity to bring fast bites to the park and test his theory that “fast food” could be served with the same care and attention to detail as a Michelin starred meal. “Everyone can afford a hotdog, and I believed that the fast food experience could be special,” he said. Using the Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park kitchen to prepare the hotdogs, Meyer’s seemingly modest initiative was actually a revelation. The Chicago-style dogs became an instant hit and lines stretched down the block, drawing attention from both local and national news reports. When the cart came down, the community asked for it back.
The success of the hotdog cart laid the groundwork for a permanent restaurant spot which Meyer bid for and won in 2004. After passing on monikers like Custard’s First Stand and DogRun, he settled on Shake Shack — a name that came to him while watching “Saturday Night Live.”
Because Meyer wanted to ensure an enduring revenue stream for Madison Square Park, he donated the space back to the park and then arranged to pay rent — today the original Shake Shack restaurant contributes $750,000- $1,000,000 a year back to the park. The business also serves as a model for how culinary ventures can contribute to the revitalization of public areas and shines a light on the potential for businesses and corporations to be a force for good by helping to create welcoming community spaces. Though Meyer sold Eleven Madison Park in 2011, there are currently over 500 Shake Shack locations around the world.
Meyer’s commitment to the park has never wavered. He can often be found walking down its gravel paths on his way to the gym or stopping by to chat with the Shake Shack team. He also loves to find a well-located bench for people-watching. One could easily make the point that if it weren’t for Danny Meyer, Madison Square Park would not be the vibrant, community-centered hub it is today. Danny Meyer forever changed Madison Square Park for the better. For the man who turned his passion into plates, the story isn’t simply about food. It’s about the magic that happens when people come together to create something good — not just for themselves, but for the community at large.