Who

Meyer is the man behind some of New York's most beloved restaurants, including Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, and the burger kiosk Shake Shack.

Backstory

Daniel Harris Meyer is the grandson of the late Chicago businessman Irving B. Harris, who co-founded both the Toni Home Permanent Company (which was sold to Gillette for a then-steep $20 million in 1948) and Liberty Acorn mutual funds, and was the benefactor of Chicago institutions like the Harris Theater and the Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Meyer's own father, a travel agent/hotel operator/restaurant operator, was less successful—he died bankrupt—but Danny still grew up comfortably in the St. Louis suburbs, went to college at Trinity, and whiled away a few post-graduation years in Europe, working as both a cook and a host at various bistros and trattorias.

By 1984, Meyer had decamped to New York and was working as assistant manager at a little-remembered Italian seafood restaurant, Pesca. The next year, at the age of 27, he opened the Union Square Café. The restaurant broke new ground by divorcing fine dining from fuss: The service was warm and relaxed, not stiff; the food was sophisticated but unaffected. While reasonably successful from the start, the restaurant only really took off in 1988 after Meyer installed Michael Romano as chef. (Only then did the restaurant cinch its three-star Times rating, too.) In 1994, Meyer more or less replicated the USC formula—gracious but unpretentious service, gourmet but unflashy food—and opened Gramercy Tavern, with an up-and-comer named Tom Colicchio behind the stove.

Of note

Meyer prides himself on his populist touch, and his flagship restaurants, Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern, are indeed crowd-pleasers in the extreme, annually trading places with each other for the top spot on Zagat's "Most Popular" list. But while he'll always be the Union Square Café guy or the Gramercy Tavern guy to his many devoted fans, his company, Union Square Hospitality, has compiled a considerably broader restaurant portfolio. First came Tabla in 1997, then Eleven Madison Park in 1998, and then barbecue spot Blue Smoke in 2002. In 2004, he inked a deal with the Madison Square Park Conservancy to open the seasonal Shake Shack. The most demonstrably adored of all Meyer's establishments, the high-end burger hut routinely draws hour-long lines, and has spawned the so-called "Shack Cam," a live webcam where would-be Shack-goers can glimpse the line's length. Union Square Hospitality's most recent Manhattan venture, the Alsatian-inflected Modern, debuted inside the MoMA in 2005. Meyer also operates two lower-profile cafes within the museum: Café 2 and Terrace 5.

Recently

When the Modern opened, much was made of how it was the first Danny Meyer restaurant that wasn't in walking distance of Union Square. But in mid-2007, Meyer and Romano opened a restaurant considerably farther afield: an outpost of the Union Square Café in Tokyo. More recently, Meyer has announced plans to franchise his ultra-popular Shake Shack, with one outpost on tap for the Mets' forthcoming new stadium, Citi Field, and another for the Upper West Side.

In print

Meyer and Romano have collaborated on two cookbooks, 1994's The Union Square Café Cookbook and 2001's Second Helpings from Union Square Café. As for his solo literary efforts, in late 2006 Meyer published Setting the Table, a manifesto delineating his famed philosophy of hospitality (summary: he's for it).

Inner circle

In addition to Romano, Meyer has several other top-flight chefs on the payroll. Michael Anthony, late of Dan Barber's Blue Hill at Stone Barns, started as executive chef at Gramercy Tavern in late 2006 after Colicchio's departure. There's also Floyd Cardoz at Tabla, Gabriel Kreuther at the Modern, and Daniel Humm (a 2005 Food & Wine "Best New Chef") at Eleven Madison Park.

Family ties

Meyer's uncle is noted political operative William Harris, who served as chief executive of the 2004 Republican National Convention. Danny served on the city's official welcoming committee.

Personal

Meyer met his wife, Audrey, during his stint at Pesca in the '80s—she worked as a waitress there. The couple has four kids (Hallie, Charles, Gretchen, and Peyton) and live in an apartment overlooking Gramercy Park filled with Meyer's collection of art, which includes pieces by Man Ray and Sol LeWitt. (Fellow restaurateur Phil Suarez is a neighbor in the building.) They bought a weekend home in Washington, Conn. for $3 million in 2003. Audrey sings in a rock band in her spare time.