Dana Spiotta Quotes

A lot of restaurants serve good food, but they don't have very good service.

No tablecloths, silver cutlery, fine porcelain, sommeliers, or deep wine lists - that's fine. But no service or hospitality? That's going too far.

Hospitality is central to the restaurant business, yet it's a hard idea to define precisely. Mostly, it involves being nice to people and making them feel welcome. You notice it when it's there, and you particularly notice it when it isn't. A single significant lapse in this area can be your dominant impression of an entire meal.

I think my service is better than my food... I focus so much on the service.

Good service can save a bad meal, but there is no level of food that can save bad service.

Customers are more friendly when they've had a meal.

After failing four times and after working for other people and realizing that nobody paid attention to the food like they should have, we wanted to just pay attention to the food and service.

Still, I never really mind bad service in a restaurant. It makes me feel better about not leaving a tip.

I love restaurants from top to bottom.

Food is one part of the experience. And it has to be somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the dining experience. But the rest counts as well: The mood, the atmosphere, the music, the feeling, the design, the harmony between what you have on the plate and what surrounds the plate.

If people ask me, 'What do you think could improve in Toronto dining,' I'd say there's nothing to improve on.

You have to think of a restaurant as a series of impressions. But what makes my job so great is there's no one answer that's right for every restaurant.

Chalkboards being used inside the restaurant seem to be a good sign that the proprietors are proud of their food, and that's kind of nice, actually - it's a nice personal touch.

It's sad that we have become so accustomed to bad service that we're shocked when we get good service.

Essentially what's going to determine how you succeed in New York is how people feel about the space, how delicious the food is, how they perceive the value and, most important of all, how they feel treated. My understanding is Stephen Starr is exceptionally good at all of this and his ability to create a transporting experience.

Although the skills aren't hard to learn, finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat, is what makes a really good restaurant.

I'm all for consumer rights. I get very aggravated if I don't get a good service.

Good service means never having to ask for anything.

I love the intensity of the fine-dining kitchen, but loathe the fine-dining experience.

So I've seen life as one long learning process. And if I see - you know, if I fly on somebody else's airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn't in - 21 years ago, then I'd think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I'd like to fly on.

The chef can be very innovative, but the decision is made by the customer.

Just to be honest, like I always am, I tip on my service. I think it's a difference between good service and bad service, and just having a bad day.

I think what you got to do is to create an environment which people wish to sit in. You have to create a menu which is interesting to people. You have to create food which is delicious and affordable. I think that's what's important.

There is something wrong when you wait in line thirty minutes to get a hamburger that was cooked for ninety seconds an hour ago.

Eating out doesn't have to be a formula. Eating out is about having fun. I get really frustrated when it's badly done.