Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

by Bo Burlingham

It was an interesting balance to maintain. The restaurants would be recognizably part of Union Square Hospitality Group, and yet completely different from one another. They would have a common culture, but the feeling of each would be distinctive. They were like kids, Meyer said: Each would have its own personality, but you’d never doubt that they were members of the same family. Some of their DNA would be the same, and some different. There were, he conceded, some issues that had yet to be worked out. “It’s critical for everyone to know what few things should be nonnegotiably similar,” he said, “but for me it doesn’t go too much further than the sense of how people feel treated. Beyond that, I think things should look different, taste different, smell different—which you need to sustain a high level of interest.”