This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
How do you keep a company's culture alive when it grows beyond what one founder can personally oversee? Danny Meyer's What Could Possibly Go Right? is his answer, and it appeared on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list in October 2026.
.png)
This summary covers scaling hospitality culture, accepting failure, hiring and training, and the limits of the book, plus an honest look at the book's limits. You will find more titles like it in our Leadership & Management book summaries.
Best for: managers, founders and restaurant or service professionals who are scaling a team. Reading time of the book: about 6 to 8 hours in print. Reading time of this summary: about six minutes.
The book in one sentence
Meyer argues that an enduring culture is scaled through disciplined hiring, training and communication, and by accepting that failure is a normal part of growth.
About the author and the book
Danny Meyer is the restaurateur behind Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern and Shake Shack, and the author of Setting the Table (2006). What Could Possibly Go Right? The Essential Journey to Scale an Enduring Culture was published on September 29, 2026, and ranked number 13 on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list for the week ending October 10, 2026.
The book at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Danny Meyer |
| Published | September 29, 2026 |
| Follow-up to | Setting the Table (2006) |
| Main subject | Scaling an enduring company culture |
| Format | Accessible, with action outlines and checklists |
| Label | Leadership & Management |
5 ideas worth remembering
1. Failure is inevitable
Trying to prevent all failure stifles the creativity and best impulses of the best teams.
2. Culture scales through systems
Disciplined hiring, training and communication carry a founder's values to people the founder will never meet.
3. Staff come first
In Meyer's enlightened hospitality, staff come first, customers second and the community third.
4. The customer is not always right
Because nobody is always right, trusted front-line judgment matters more than the slogan.
5. Growth changes the founder's role
Opening Gramercy Tavern ended the hands-on approach he used in his first restaurants.
Scaling a culture, not just a company
Meyer wrote Setting the Table in 2006 to explain the service philosophy behind restaurants such as Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern and Shake Shack. This new book picks up a harder question: what happens to that philosophy when the company grows? A founder who can greet every guest and interview every hire cannot do so across many restaurants, and the book is about what replaces that personal presence.
He is candid about the moment this became real. Opening Gramercy Tavern disrupted his hands-on approach to hiring and greeting diners, and he describes how scaling beyond a few restaurants forced him to build systems for hiring, training and communication. The point is not to replace warmth with process, but to make the process carry the warmth to people the founder will never meet.
Meyer also describes accepting that failure is inevitable in a thriving business. His argument is that trying to prevent every failure stifles the creativity and best impulses of the best teams. The job of a leader is therefore to make failures small, visible and recoverable rather than to pretend they will not happen.
Enlightened hospitality in practice
A recurring idea in Meyer's public talks about the book is what he calls enlightened hospitality. In a St. Louis interview he put staff first, customers second and the community third, and described staff comfort as the start of a virtuous cycle. A team that feels cared for is better able to care for guests, and guests who are well treated return and bring neighbors.
He also rejects the old rule that the customer is always right. His reasoning, as reported in that interview, is that nobody is always right, so the slogan does not help anyone. What matters more is whether people on the front line are trusted and equipped to solve a problem in the moment, which is a cultural question rather than a scripted one.
These ideas matter beyond restaurants. Any business that grows has to decide which parts of its character are written down and which are left to individual judgment. The book's practical answer is that culture is built from repeated small actions, such as how people are hired, how new staff are trained and how bad news travels.
Strengths, limits and who it is for
The publisher notes that most buyers are expected to be restaurant and hospitality professionals, but that the lessons apply to nearly any growing business. The book is written accessibly, avoids corporate jargon, uses real examples of successes and failures, and includes action outlines and checklists. That makes it closer to a working manual than to a memoir.
Its limits follow from its origin. Meyer's examples come from a company with unusually strong brands and a founder with a rare talent for hospitality. Readers in industries without direct guest contact may need to translate the lessons, and some will want harder data on what happens when culture efforts fail.
As a reading choice, it is best for managers who are about to grow a team or a location and want to think about culture before problems appear. It is less useful as a theory of management, and it is not meant to be one. It is a practical, experience-based answer to a question every growing company eventually faces.
Strengths and limits
What works well
- Written plainly, with real successes and failures as examples.
- Includes action outlines and checklists.
- Offers a candid view of what changed for the founder as the company grew.
Where it falls short
- Examples come from one unusual company and one gifted founder.
- Readers outside service industries must translate the lessons.
- It is a practical manual, not a theory of management.
Who should read it?
Who should read it: Managers and founders about to scale a team or open a second location. Who may skip it: Readers who want rigorous data or a general theory of organizations.
Key takeaways
- Culture must be built into hiring, training and communication.
- Accept failure and make it small and recoverable.
- Look after staff first and guests will follow.
- Trust front-line judgment over scripts.
- A founder's role has to change as the company grows.
FAQ
What is What Could Possibly Go Right? about?
It is Danny Meyer's guide to scaling an enduring company culture, as a follow-up to Setting the Table.
When was it published?
September 29, 2026.
Is it only for restaurant owners?
No. The publisher expects most buyers to be hospitality professionals, but the lessons apply to nearly any growing business.
What is enlightened hospitality?
Meyer's approach of putting staff first, customers second and the community third.
Does the book include practical tools?
Yes, it includes action outlines and checklists.
Keep reading
- Atomic Habits by James Clear: Summary, Key Ideas & Review: a practical look at how small habits compound into lasting change
- Deep Work by Cal Newport: Summary, Key Ideas & Review: a guide to focused effort in a distracted world
- Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Summary, Key Ideas & Review: a guide to deep focus and absorbing, meaningful work.
- All Leadership & Management summaries
- Back to the SummarBooks home page
Get the book
If you want Meyer's full playbook for scaling a culture, you can get a copy of What Could Possibly Go Right? on Amazon.
.png)
Disclosure: as an Amazon Associate, SummarBooks earns from qualifying purchases. If you buy through the links above, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This summary is an independent overview and does not replace reading the book. This summary relies on the publisher's description and published interviews; some details may differ in the full book.