Why Did Danny Meyer Quit to Open Restaurants?

David Senra, reading Bill Gurley's account, says Danny Meyer quit a rich sales job at Checkpoint after an uncle told him to open a restaurant, the field he already loved. Senra thinks the pay was about $125,000 a year, about $400,000 after inflation.

Meyer grew up obsessed with food and restaurants, yet he was set on law school with no interest in it. The night before the LSAT he ate with his uncle, his aunt, and his grandmother and talked about becoming a lawyer. The uncle told him to stop and open a restaurant. The comment woke him up. He took the LSAT the next day, applied to no schools, quit, and took a restaurant job at one-tenth of the salary. By day he worked in the restaurant. At night he took classes, made a notebook for each of 12 restaurant icons, and studied what made them special. In Europe he worked in one restaurant for free and paid $500 a month to work in another. Income fell from $125,000 a year to $12,000 and then to negative $25,000. Back in the United States he spent six or seven months searching more than 100 locations. At 27 he opened Union Square Cafe in New York City.

Meyer spent nearly two years studying on his own and called it the best work he had ever done as a student. He later launched 16 high-end restaurants in New York City. Four won Michelin stars. Several years later he found Shake Shack, now a multi-billion dollar public company.