Restaurateur and bestselling author Danny Meyer joins Morning Joe to discuss his new book, ‘What Could Possibly Go Right? The Essential Journey to Scale an Enduring Culture’. In it, the founder of the international billion-dollar chain Shake Shack explains why optimism –even in the face of failure– isn’t naïve, it’s an advantage.
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What Daniel Meyer said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Danny Meyer, founder of Shake Shack, discussed his new book 'What Could Possibly Go Right?' and his philosophy of optimism as an action. He traced his optimism to growing up in St. Louis as a middle child with a Republican dad and Democratic mom, where dinner conversations fostered civility. Meyer described how Shake Shack began as a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park in 2001, part of an art project to support the park, and after three years he turned it into a kiosk, which he and his mother donated to the park. He emphasized that he focuses on scaling hospitality and feeling, not just unit count. He introduced the concept of 'essentiality', the few things so important that life would be diminished without them. Meyer admitted he once said he'd never open another restaurant after 11 Madison Park, but later opened Blue Smoke, learning that saying 'never' is foolish. He acknowledged learning from failures, including his father's bankruptcies, and stressed that optimism is an action that doesn't let pessimism have the last say.
Key takeaways
Meyer's optimism stems from his St. Louis upbringing with a Republican dad and Democratic mom, where dinner fostered civility.
Shake Shack started as a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park in 2001, part of an art project, and became a kiosk after three years.
Meyer focuses on scaling hospitality and feeling, not just the number of units, which he says is key to Shake Shack's growth.
He once said he'd never open another restaurant after 11 Madison Park, but later opened Blue Smoke, learning not to say 'never'.
Meyer defines optimism as an action that doesn't let pessimism have the last say, and he has learned from failures like his father's bankruptcies.
Numbers and commitments
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2001
Year the hot dog cart started in Madison Square Park
5:31... I mean the restaurant business, food service industry is brutally competitive, was there ever a point where you hit a wall and said, you know, that's it, we're not going to try to build anymore, I don't want to go this way or that way?
Our next guest is a force behind the beloved New York City restaurants, Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, and the modern as well as the founder of the international sensation Shake Shack, which grew from a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park to a billion-dollar chain. Now best-selling author and restaurateur, Danny Meyer is out with a new book detailing and he is taking some of the secrets and stories behind his great success. It's called What Could Possibly Go Right? The Essential Journey to the Face of Failure, It's an Advantage and Enduring Culture, and Danny argues that optimism even in the face of failure isn't naive, it's... Danny, you have started by just giving us some outrageously... I mean this was not right. Outrageously and I wanted to get a good great. What happened here?
Those are called crullers. Those are from Daily Provisions and you know, like I used to bring my teachers little gifts if I wanted to get a good... I don't think it's going to... That was great. You buttered us up. I have a sugar high that's not healthy. You also gave us Joe Coffee here, which we are going to use even though it has my name. You also gave us Joe Coffee here, because I just, whenever I've approached anything in life, I've said I'm going to do it. But it's not going to... It's amazing that power of optimism and also, because you don't see the thousand things that go wrong. You just keep going, right? Well, when you read this book, What Could Possibly Go Right, you see that a lot of things actually do go wrong. And yet, when you have the underlying ethos, what could possibly go right, it's a great way to help solve the problems when they do exist.
And I got to say, especially at this time when so many people are so negative and cynical about so many things, it's not a bad way to start the day by just asking that question. Where did you get that from?
I got that probably from growing up in St. Louis. When I grew up there, we were as purple of a state. We always were the bellwether state in the country and I was the middle child of three, Republican dad, Democratic mom. And the nice thing about all the arguments we had is that the food over dinner was the thing that made us all shut up and just get along. My business... Were your parents optimists? I think they were. I think they were all civic-minded people and they had that in common and that's actually been the fuel with which I've gone through business. I love it.
So, Danny, let's talk, let's take one example of your successes, which is Shake Shack, and tell us how this ethos you're describing here allowed it... Sorry, I'm still digesting. I know. So good. I've had several. How you took a hot dog stand in Madison Square Park, a hot dog stand, and now it's got some 700 locations around the world, Shake Shack. What was that process? How did you build?
Yeah, the process was that the hot dog cart was really just part of an art project in Madison Square Park back in the summer of 2001, right before 9/11, and the whole point was to try to take care of the park, give people a reason to use the park, see if we could make a couple bucks for the Madison Square Park Conservancy. And we lost money that year but the community had so much fun with the hot dog cart they said bring it back. We did it three consecutive years and then I asked the question what could possibly go right if we turn this into a kiosk? And my mom and I donated this kiosk to the park so the park would become our landlord, generating revenue for the park, bringing people to the park. And that became Shake Shack. And then five years later we opened a second. It was never something that I designed for the year. You could do all those things a little bit better but more importantly I think if you do them with hospitality that's what scales and so you talked about how many there are in the world. I don't really think about the units as much as I think about scaling the feeling and that's why I really wanted to write this book.
7 more exchanges in this transcript
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Meyer, D. (2026, October 1). Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer on how 'OPTIMISM' and learning from failures is key to success [Interview transcript]. MS NOW. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2969219/
MLA
Daniel Meyer. "Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer on how 'OPTIMISM' and learning from failures is key to success." MS NOW, 1 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2969219/.
BibTeX
@misc{meyer2026_2969219,
author = {Daniel Meyer},
title = {Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer on how 'OPTIMISM' and learning from failures is key to success},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, MS NOW. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2969219/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
