麦肯锡-为餐饮业找到一种脚踏实地的方法（英）

April 2025Mercer Street Hospitality founder and CEO John McDonald discusses how he selects new projects while maintaining his stable of restaurants and bars in a notoriously challenging industry. Strategy & Corporate Finance PracticeFinding a grounded approach to the restaurant businessIn this episode of The Committed Innovator, restaurateur John McDonald, the founder and CEO of Mercer Street Hospitality, speaks with McKinsey senior partner and innovation leader Erik Roth about maintaining success and equilibrium in the notoriously difficult hospitality industry. This is an edited transcript of their conversation. For more discussions on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform.Erik Roth, McKinsey: Why did you get into the hospitality industry? What were you trying to accomplish?John McDonald, Mercer Street Hospitality: It’s a complicated journey, but it started with being in college. I was good friends with the guys who were building the Mercer Hotel down in SoHo in New York City. They were about ten or 12 years older than I was, and I watched them. It was André Balazs, Campion Platt, and a number of other characters in their ecosystem. It taught me that there was a creative way to go about business. When I graduated from college, instead of going to Wall Street, which is where I was headed, I took a page out of their book and started thinking, “What could I do?” And that’s how I started MercBar, my first business, on Mercer Street in lower Manhattan, close to the hotel.Erik Roth: How did you get that started? John McDonald: Essentially, I had been down there every day; I was what I would call a soft intern for those guys. They were parking their cars in the garage that became the bar, and they weren’t doing anything with it. So I just naively thought I could do the bar. I had a weird sense of confidence that made sense to me, and I had no fear at that age. So I pieced together money from friends and family. The guys helped me tremendously; the hotel was my landlord for a long time. And I just moved forward every day. I don’t really know the explanation. It just happened.Erik Roth: And what does this all look like today? You own and run a range of properties now. John McDonald: Currently, Mercer Street is a collection of about eight or nine restaurants, including Lure Fishbar, Bowery Meat Company, Smyth Tavern, Bar Mercer, and recently Cha Cha Tang. I’m getting ready to relaunch the restaurant in the W Union Square. We have a Lure Fishbar in Chicago. It’s a small to medium-size hospitality company.Erik Roth: Tell us a bit about your early challenges. I know your philosophy is to be very hands-on, to be around, near your home, and to make it feel like a local presence that is meaningful for people who dine in your establishments.John McDonald: I’m fortunate, because most of the restaurants are within a very easy walking distance from where I live. I would argue there’s a benefit to that. You don’t let