The salt shaker’s path to excellence

Great restaurants do this very well. The next time you’re at an excellent restaurant, look at the position of the salt shaker. If, during your meal you move it, you may notice that when your table is being reset, that is the first item to be replaced after the tablecloth…exactly where it was before.

Why? Because that is the pivot piece from where the rest of the presentation begins. Plates, silverware, napkins all take their lead from the salt shaker.

In Restaurateur Danny Meyer’s excellent book Setting the Table, he tells a story of when he was first working in restaurants and was struggling to maintain, discipline, attention to detail and consistency. A mentor of his, Pat Cetta, a fabled steak house owner in NYC, told it this way and broke it down to a single item, the salt shaker:

“Your staff and your guests are always moving your salt shaker off center. That’s their job. It is the job of life. It’s the law of entropy! Until you understand that, you’re going to get upset every time someone moves the salt shaker off center. It is not your job to get upset. You just need to understand: That’s what they do. Your job is just to move the shaker back each time and let them know exactly what you stand for. Let them know what excellence looks like. And if you’re ever willing to let them decide where the center is, then I want you to give them the keys to the store.”

Isn’t that what happens to us often in life? We begin with all the best intentions either at the start of a day or the start of the year, and shortly thereafter someone or something moves our ‘salt shaker’ off center? Maybe that ‘salt shaker’ was a goal, our self belief or a dream.

Regardless, it’s up to us to ‘reset’ our own personal ‘salt shaker’ and begin again. Just like at a restaurant table, it may be moved multiple times throughout the day, but if we consciously return it to our own personal center every time, we show ourselves, and everyone else, what excellence, discipline and consistency looks like.

Happy 2022!