NYC staple Union Square Cafe marks 40 years in business
📅 Oct 11, 2025CBS Mornings8 MIN39 SEGMENTS · 4 SPEAKERS
Union Square Cafe, founded by restaurateur Danny Meyer, marked 40 years in business in New York City this week. Dana Jacobson stopped by the iconic Manhattan establishment to reminisce with Meyer and grab a bite to eat.
"CBS Saturday Morning" co-hosts Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson deliver two hours of original reporting and breaking news, as well as profiles of leading figures in culture and the arts. Watch "CBS Saturday Morning" at 7 a.m. ET on CBS and 8 a.m. ET on the CBS News app.
Subscribe to "CBS Mornings" on YouTube: / cbsmornings
Watch CBS News 24/7: https://cbsnews.com/live...
Questions asked in this interview
6
2:01What was it at age 27 that sparked what this restaurant is that we know now?
Today on the dish, Union Square Cafe, founded by restaurateur Danny Meyer. Earlier this week, the restaurant marked 40 years here in New York City with a celebration held in Union Square. The site with special meaning for Meyer, its green market hailed as the city's best farmers market in both scale and scope. And key to Meyer opening up his first restaurant in the neighborhood. To mark the four decade anniversary, we stopped by Union Square Cafe to reminisce, reflect, and of course to eat.
What you want in a burger is a mess. Union Square Cafe's burger was always meant to be a wrist-dripping mess. Messy. Messy. I got it. Oh, it is so good though.
Next fire is going to be ribeye medium rare and just here being Union Square Cafe. Meyer's first New York City restaurant. The perfect setting to soak it all in.
The trick and the magic of this restaurant is that whether or not you've ever dined here before, we're going to make you feel like you belong. It's been the restaurant's ethos since opening its doors four decades ago. Just steps away from Union Square Park.
Back in 1985, Union Square was not what it is now. Had to be different. Completely different. As a matter of fact, in those early days, this square, this whole area was dangerous. And while a rent hike forced Meyer to move the restaurant a few blocks north in 2016, this month still marks its 40th anniversary. His Union Square Hospitality Group now boasts nearly a dozen brands, but as they say, you never forget your first.
For the first 10 years of my career, this was the one and only restaurant I had. I breathed it, tasted it, slept with it. You know, this is where I learned to be a restaurateur.
I didn't even know I wanted to be a restaurateur. A political science major at Trinity College. What do political science majors do? What you're supposed to do? You go get a law degree. But the night before taking the LSAT, his uncle changed everything. God bless him on that night. He said, 'You're going to be dead a hell of a lot longer than you're going to be alive. Why would you do something you don't want to do? All I've ever heard you talk about your whole life is food and restaurants. You got to open a restaurant.'
My dad was in the travel business primarily selling group tours to France and Italy and I was writing at the age of seven about quiche Lorraine and crème fraîche and fraises des bois. Who has a dog at the age of seven named Ratatouille? That was us.
You bought what had grown that day or the day before and it wasn't something you needed to put on your menu. It wasn't a political statement. It wasn't a marketing idea. It's just the way you did it.
Two lamb order in a philosophy that remains at the heart of Union Square Cafe. Over four decades, a handful of menu items have become classics beyond that burger. Pork chop up the hot garlic potato chips. A happy accident created when the slicer for fries was put on the wrong setting.
They accidentally come out like this. So the question was, Danny, do we have to 86 them? 'Cause there's not cottage fries. They're chips. And I said, we don't have a choice. It's too late, guys. The show's on, right? So we serve these things. Everybody fell in love with them.
I smelled this rosemary. Didn't even know where it was coming from and my nose took me right to their bar and they had just come out of the oven piping hot.
20 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Meyer, D. (2025, October 11). NYC staple Union Square Cafe marks 40 years in business [Interview transcript]. CBS Mornings. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/559947/
MLA
Daniel Meyer. "NYC staple Union Square Cafe marks 40 years in business." CBS Mornings, 11 Oct. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/559947/.
BibTeX
@misc{meyer2025_559947,
author = {Daniel Meyer},
title = {NYC staple Union Square Cafe marks 40 years in business},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CBS Mornings. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/559947/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
