Throughout the history of American dining, few transformations have been as complete or as instructive as that of Eleven Madison Park. When Will Guidara took the helm of the Madison Square brasserie in 2006, it was a perfectly respectable two-star establishment serving competent steak frites to expense-account crowds. By 2017, it had become, according to the World's 50 Best Restaurants list, the finest dining establishment on the planet. The story of that ascent, as told in Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality, is ostensibly about restaurants. But to read it as merely a hospitality memoir would be to miss both its delightful storytelling and its larger argument:

in our increasingly transactional world, the deliberate creation of human connection isn't just good business; it's a form of resistance.

Service is black and white; hospitality is color

Guidara begins with his operating philosophy: "Service is black and white; hospitality is color." This distinction between the competent execution of tasks and the genuine engagement that transforms an interaction into a relationship becomes the lens through which Guidara examines not just restaurants but the entire service economy. In an age where efficiency is worshipped, human contact is increasingly mediated by screens, and customer service defaults to AI chatbots, which can be remarkably effective but risk reducing every interaction to a decision tree, Guidara's insistence on what he calls "Unreasonable Hospitality" feels both quaint and quietly revolutionary.

But what makes Unreasonable Hospitality unexpectedly a fun read isn't just its philosophy but it's the sheer delight of its stories. For example, Shake Shack, one of my favorite restaurants that my family always goes to when we visit St. Louis, is now a global phenomenon that Guidara reveals began in 2004 as a small hot dog cart in Madison Square Park, part of an art installation. The cart was such a hit it reopened each summer, eventually evolving into a permanent kiosk serving burgers and frozen custard. By the time Guidara arrived at EMP, ShackBurgers were being prepped in the restaurant's private dining room, with cooks carrying sheet trays of raw patties out the front door. During the 2008 financial crisis, when fine dining was hemorrhaging money, Danny Meyer's former "cute little art project" had become so profitable it was essentially subsidizing EMP's existence. The four-star restaurant was kept alive by what started as a hot dog stand. I find it funny that Guidara's original dream job wasn't running one of the world's best restaurants but it was actually running Shake Shack. When Danny Meyer offered him the position at EMP, Guidara actually negotiated to take it for just one year, with the promise that he could then move to Shake Shack.

These are just some of the stories that made the book so enjoyable. I have no history or knowledge of the fine dining scene but getting a behind-the-scenes tour of New York's dining was fun. We learn about canelés being replaced with basic granola as a parting gift, a restaurant-wide obsession with tiny blue gelato spoons that cost a fortune but created a moment of delight, about turning the coat check into a magic trick by memorizing which coats belonged to which tables. These aren't just anecdotes but they're evidence of Guidara's core belief that "hospitality is a selfish pleasure. It feels great to make other people feel good."

Hospitality in practice

What does unreasonable hospitality look like in practice? It's a server sprinting to a corner cart to buy a hot dog for European tourists who mentioned they'd eaten everywhere in New York except from a street vendor. It's transforming a private dining room into a beach, complete with sand and kiddie pool, for a couple whose vacation was canceled. It's hiring full-time "Dreamweavers," whose sole job is to create magical moments for guests.

This might sound cheesy or naive when taken out of context. And of course, readers could easily get lost in the extravagance, thinking they need private beaches and dedicated magic-makers to practice unreasonable hospitality. If that's you're takeaway then you're missing the point of the book. Guidara grounds his philosophy in rigorous business thinking, which he attributes to early mentors in his career. One practice in particular stood out, his "Rule of 95/5": manage 95 percent of your expenses down to the penny so you can spend the last 5 percent "foolishly" on gestures that create lasting memories. More importantly, that two-dollar hot dog made as much impact (or more) as any thousand-dollar gesture. The book's central thesis isn't about extravagance; it's about thinking of others in ways both small and large. "Luxury means just giving more," he observes, "hospitality means being more thoughtful."

Lessons for higher education

As VP of Enrollment Strategy and the Global Campus at Southern Seminary, I found myself taking notes throughout. The book's principles speak directly to the challenges of online education, where human connection must cross both physical distance and computer screens. But I'll be honest: implementing Guidara's vision in higher ed feels slightly out of reach. Unlike his restaurant where staff stayed for years perfecting their craft, many of our student-facing positions turn over annually. Just providing baseline consistency becomes a challenge when the person who answered emails yesterday is walking across the graduation stage today.

How do you build a culture of hospitality when you're constantly training new people? How do we inspire staff to add "color" to their service? Reading Guidara has me completely rethinking these challenges but challenges do inspire inspiration. I'm not sure how it works but its worth a shot.

How can we consistently think through ways to delight students, to show we care but not through over the top gestures. But small, thoughtful acts that say "I see you" in a world that often doesn't. Hospitality isn't about having unlimited resources or perfect systems. It's about choosing to add color to someone's black-and-white day, even if you're only here for a short time.

Guidara argues that "without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference in someone's life." When an online student struggles to submit an assignment, the "black and white" response is to direct them to support. The "color" might be copying their professor on the exchange, proactively explaining the difficulties. These small additions don't require years of training or massive budgets. They require seeing the human behind the help ticket.

The book's biographical sections reinforce why such gestures matter. Guidara's mother's long battle with brain cancer taught him about presence and welcome; his father's relentless intentionality showed him that "every decision, from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane, matters." These aren't just origin stories but the foundation of a framework that sees hospitality as fundamentally about human dignity.

Conflicting goals for innovated ideas

The book is most compelling when Guidara grapples with the tensions inherent in his approach. How do you maintain excellence while fostering warmth? How do you scale personal attention in an increasingly automated world? His answer lies in what he calls "conflicting goals," deliberately choosing objectives that seem mutually exclusive, like being both the most precise and the most welcoming restaurant in New York. "Multiple conflicting goals force you to innovate," he argues, channeling management theorist Roger Martin.

For those of us in education, perhaps our conflicting goals are providing consistent service while embracing constant change, or delivering personal attention at institutional scale. The innovation comes not from solving these tensions but from living within them.

Critics might argue that Guidara's vision is elitist, that transformative hospitality is a luxury available only to those who can afford $300 tasting menus. But he addresses this directly, arguing that the principles of Unreasonable Hospitality apply whether you're serving street hot dogs or fancy cuisine. His examples from real estate agents leaving outlet covers for expecting parents or car salespeople including emergency roadside kits suggest a democratization of thoughtfulness that extends far beyond restaurant walls.

"Start with what you want to achieve, instead of limiting yourself to what's realistic or sustainable," Guidara advises. It's a philosophy that led him to create a four-star restaurant where the coat check worked by magic and guests left with stories instead of just full stomachs. But it's also a challenge to readers in any field: What would your work look like if you optimized for delight? What becomes possible when you decide that "reasonable" isn't enough?

Conclusion

In the end, Unreasonable Hospitality is less about the restaurant business than about the business of being human in an increasingly inhuman economy. Guidara's great insight is that the same forces that make genuine hospitality seem unreasonable also make it more necessary and more powerful. In a world starved for authentic connection, a moment of genuine care becomes revolutionary. Whether it's a two-dollar hot dog for a tourist, a handwritten note to a struggling student, or teaching a part-time employee that their job matters because they matter, these gestures accumulate into something larger: proof that we haven't yet surrendered to a life of solely transactions.

The question isn't whether we can afford such gestures, Guidara suggests, but whether we can afford not to make them. And for those of us wrestling with limited resources, high turnover, and institutional constraints, perhaps the real lesson is this: start where you are. A little color goes a long way in a black-and-white world.

Key Quotes from the Book

1. “One of my favorite questions to ask was, “What’s the difference between service and hospitality?” The best answer I ever got came from a woman I ended up not hiring. She said, “Service is black and white; hospitality is color.” “Black and white” means you’re doing your job with competence and efficiency; “color” means you make people feel great about the job you’re doing for them. Getting the right plate to the right person at the right table is service. But genuinely engaging with the person you’re serving, so you can make an authentic connection—that’s hospitality." 
2. “The answer is simple, if not easy: create a culture of hospitality… How do you make the people who work for you and the people you serve feel seen and valued? How do you give them a sense of belonging?”
3. “Hospitality is a selfish pleasure. It feels great to make other people feel good.”
4. “People will forget what you do and what you said; they’ll never forget how you made them feel.”
5. “When you work in hospitality (and I believe that whatever you do for a living, you can choose to be in the hospitality business), you have the privilege of joining people in their most joyful moments and offering consolation in their hardest ones.”
6. “Intention means every decision, from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane, matters.”
7. “Make the charitable assumption: assume the best of people, even when they aren’t behaving particularly well.”
8. “Manage 95 percent of your business down to the penny; spend the last 5 percent ‘foolishly.’ That final 5 percent has an outsize impact on the guest experience.”
9. “A leader’s responsibility is to identify the strengths of the people on their team, no matter how buried those strengths might be.”
10. “There’s no replacement for learning a system from the ground up.”
11. “In too many organizations, the people at the top have all the authority and none of the information, while the people on the front line have all the information and none of the authority.”
12. “Managers sometimes shroud criticism in humor because they’re insecure about delivering a rebuke, but sarcasm is always the wrong medium for serious communication.”
13. “Being able to ask for help is a display of strength and confidence. People who refuse to ask for help are deceiving themselves and letting the team down.”
14. “Creativity is an active process, not a passive one.”
15. “Luxury means just giving more; hospitality means being more thoughtful.”