Book Club Night Kit

What Could Possibly Go Right?

Danny Meyer

Cozy night

A warm, generous memoir-in-lessons from the restaurateur behind some of New York's most beloved dining rooms, built on the idea that hospitality is really just paying close attention to people. It reads like a long, comfortable conversation with someone who genuinely wants you to feel taken care of.

Come Be Fed, Come Be Taken Care Of

We are reading Danny Meyer's What Could Possibly Go Right?, so naturally there will be soup, little burgers, cornbread, and cider on the stove. Bring your softest sweater and a story about a meal that made you feel looked after.

Reading level: Easy

Best for: A club that likes nonfiction with heart, talks with their hands about food, and would rather share stories than debate.

Discussion

Warm-up

1.Before we talk about the book at all: tell us about a restaurant, diner, or kitchen table where you have always felt genuinely taken care of. What made it feel that way?
2.The title asks what could possibly go right. What is one small thing that went right for you this week that you have not told anyone about yet?

Digging in

1.Meyer draws a line between service (doing the thing correctly) and hospitality (making someone feel good). Where in your own life have you been on the receiving end of real hospitality, and how did it land in your body?
2.Reading about his early years and the people who shaped his taste, did you find yourself thinking about anyone who fed you or taught you something at a table? Who came to mind, and what did you want to tell them?
3.There is a lot of warmth in how he writes about taking care of the people who work for him. Which part of that softened you, or made you wish a workplace of yours had felt more like that?
4.The book treats optimism as a practice rather than a personality trait. Did you find that comforting, a little aspirational, or slightly too sunny? No wrong answer, just honest.

Going deep

1.He is unusually willing to sit with the things that did not work and talk about them kindly. Was there a stumble in the book that you found yourself unexpectedly moved by, maybe because it resembled one of your own?
2.By the time you closed the book, had your sense of what you want the next few years to feel like shifted at all? Not what you want to achieve, but what you want it to feel like day to day.

On the table & to sip

To eat

Shake Shack-style smashburger sliders with crinkle fries

A gentle nod to the burger stand that grew out of Meyer's world, scaled down to a tray of little burgers everyone can grab while they talk. Griddle them ahead and keep them warm in foil.

A big pot of soup with good bread and butter

The most hospitable food there is, and the book's whole argument in one bowl. Tomato, chicken noodle, or lentil, whatever you make best, plus a sliced loaf and a dish of salted butter.

Warm skillet cornbread with honey

Nods to the barbecue and American comfort cooking woven through his restaurants, and it fills the house with the smell of someone having gone to trouble for you. One bowl, one pan, thirty minutes.

To sip

Mulled apple cider with cinnamon and orange peel (no alcohol)

Simmer it on the stove before anyone arrives so the welcome starts at the front door. Non-alcoholic and endlessly refillable.

Old-fashioned, batched in a pitcher

A classic American dining-room drink, made once in advance so the host is never stuck behind a bar instead of in the conversation.

A single friendly red by the fireplace

One warm, unfussy bottle (Beaujolais or a soft Chianti) poured into whatever glasses you own. Hospitality over formality, exactly as the book would have it.