The Product Is Not The Food

Operators in the hospitality business have a blind spot so common it has become an industry assumption: the product is what is on the plate.

It is not.

The food is the delivery mechanism. The product is the experience — the event in the day-to-day life of the Guest that they chose to share with you. A Guest who comes into your restaurant is not making a food decision. They are making a life decision. Where to spend an hour of the evening that cannot be returned. Where to spend money that could have gone elsewhere. Where to take someone they care about, or where to sit alone and decompress, or where to mark an occasion that matters to them.

Every one of those decisions carries an expectation that has nothing to do with the menu. And your operation either adds to the quality of that moment or subtracts from it. There is no neutral. The Guest leaves your building either better for having been there or worse. The food was part of that. The cast was part of that. The room, the energy, the feeling of being known or unknown, welcomed or processed — all of it contributed to an outcome that the Guest will carry with them and act on, through their return behavior and their referral behavior, for months afterward.

This is what it means to be in the hospitality business. Not the food business. Not the service business. The business of adding to the lives of the people who choose to spend time with you.

Howard Behar, one of the most influential executives in Starbucks history, understood this at the foundation. In the interview below, he talks about what it actually means to build a people-first business — and why the operators who understand the social nature of their product build something categorically different from the ones who do not.

What Changes Tomorrow

Ask yourself honestly: does your operation add to the lives of the Guests who come through the door, or does it simply complete a transaction?

The answer to that question is the most important strategic decision your business makes every shift. And it is made not in the menu, not in the marketing, but in the culture you build and the standard you hold for the people who deliver the experience.