Daniel Lubetzky

I am taking the unusual step of sharing an internal note I shared with my team because it affords me to share and reflect on how grateful I feel every day for working with such a special team at KIND every day.  I am also sharing pictures of the incredible dishes we had at Mugaritz.

KIND Team, this is a note I meant to write and send a few weeks back!

This summer while on vacation in Spain, my wife and I visited a restaurant called Mugaritz.  Founded by Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz, it is highly decorated.  Many publications rank it among the top restaurants in the world.  Every dish we tried was like a piece of art, with a fun sense of humor (see a couple pictures attached). But what struck me about the restaurant was the unending passion of every single person that I came across.   Everyone in the team seemed to have unbounded creativity, a desire to learn, a desire to please their patrons, and a commitment to excellence. 

It sounds simple to say, but I sincerely wondered how they could keep that energy level and creative spirit when many of the tasks in a restaurant are so very repetitive and grueling.  After creating a dish, they need to repeat it daily, scores of times a day, just repeat, repeat, repeat.  Some are on their feet for a dozen hours straight. 

They welcomed me into their kitchen and gave me a tour – they had a couple dozen people in the kitchen – and it was clear to me that every one of them was ecstatic to play a role in the creation of incredible dining experiences, even if for many of them it involved stirring the same sauce all night long, or washing the dishes, or peeling bucket loads of vegetables. 

I asked the sous chef giving us the tour whether it was difficult to keep all of these people motivated, when it seemed to me from talking to many of them that they were artists above all, and yet they seemed to be performing factory-line type jobs. 

The sous chef explained that everyone was passionate about their shared purpose, about being part of something magical, about building a family spirit that transcended a job, and creating an environment where doing your best was the expectation, and where that unbridled creativity and singular commitment to excellence helped them create a transformative dining experience that created so much love from their consumers.

As I heard him speak, I realized he could have just as well have been speaking about what we are striving to create at KIND every day.  I had the answers within.  And it made me SO PROUD to think that I am surrounded by such an awesome team and am so blessed to count you as my partners on this journey every day.  I meant to share this that night, and it has been on my mind every day since I got back from vacation, so I finally got to share it with you!

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU GIVE AND DO EVERY DAY.  And hope you had a great Labor Day weekend!