Sean Feeney

That has been something I never really truly thought of until seeing it in front of me has been a great reward of watching others become just confident in who they are and then applying that to what gets them truly excited.

Our director of content, she started as a host at Lilia.

And in the first six weeks, she quit six times.

Every single night, she would come to me crying.

I'm done.

I can't do this.

I can't do it.

And I didn't understand because I thought she was awesome.

And then I would read in the morning all these Yelp negative reviews about her.

And I'm like, what is going on?

She was telling people that didn't have reservations who wanted to dine.

that it was going to be a three and a half hour wait, or I'm sorry, we can't see you tonight.

And they didn't like that.

New Yorkers don't like to be told they can't have.

I would just stand next to her for a bunch of nights watching these interactions, realizing that she didn't like telling people no either.

Like it wasn't in her nature.

We don't do that in our industry.

We want people to have an amazing time.

And figuring out a way to let people warmly feel like can't happen right now, but we want it to happen is an art.

And the moment you get hit and you're back on your heels, it's game over.