CHICAGO, March,12, 2026 - Running a company while its founder is still actively involved can be a challenge. If that founder happens to be Danny Meyer, the Yoda of fine dining, a successor would have to be dumber than a rock to shun the input. And Chip Wade, CEO of Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG), has proven through his long career that he’s no dolt.
A big part of his success in the job has been an ability to blend Meyer’s vision with his own convictions on where the standard-setting upscale operator should be heading. His is no passive caretaker’s job.
Wade and Meyer invested years in hammering out a way to amicably divvy up leadership. It allows the deep industry experience and unique perspectives of both to be tapped without a lapse into confusion over who’s handling what. Above all else, the approach ensures civility and respect, the fundamental planks of USHG’s culture.
They call the system their DCI Model. An issue of import is given a “D,” an indication of who should make the final decision. It may also be designated internally as a “C,” for “consultation,” a call for both big brains to weigh in before the D is nailed. And “I” translates to “inform,” meaning one of the leaders has made the obvious decision and is just informing the other of the choice.
“Danny has given me the authority to shape the strategy and direction,” Wade explains from USHG’s New York City home office. “He essentially said, ‘If you want to take our company to Detroit, if you want to expand Daily Provisions, if you want to go to Boston, God bless you. You’re in charge.’”
Differing aptitudes have nudged each talent in a different direction. “If it’s a fine-dining restaurant, I have the final “D” on the design firm and the architect firm,” says Wade. “In terms of markets, where we go, the deal structure, the tech road map, the HR road map, all of that is done under my supervision and guidance.”
What plays to Meyer’s strength and where he retains the “D” is in the selection of a restaurant’s executive chef, a responsibility he’s refined over his 38 years of running some of the nation’s most celebrated and successful dining places.
Since moving up from president about four years ago to succeed Meyer as CEO, the four-decade veteran of the full-service sector has built significantly on USHG’s New York-centric collection of fine-dining restaurants. His successful efforts in that regard have won him the 2026 Silver Plate award in the Independent Restaurants/Multi-Concept category from IFMA The Food Away from Home Association.
Multiple restaurants are now under development in Boston and Detroit. USHG has already made a beachhead in Washington, D.C., and Tokyo.
In its home market, USHG is rapidly expanding Daily Provisions, the retail/restaurant hybrid that was conceived as a way to salvage orphaned space adjacent to the new site of Union Square Cafe, Meyer’s first restaurant venture.
The square footage wouldn’t support a full-fledged restaurant, so the company converted the nook into a takeout-focused sandwich shop that also sold baked goods, beverages, and home dining-room accessories like tapered candles and cork screws.
What was essentially a space-salvaging operation became a hit. Wade used his “D” designation to duplicate the concept, albeit with a number of tweaks, throughout the city and beyond. There are now 11 Daily Provisions open, including outposts in Washington and Boston.
Wade has been entrusted with the culture Meyer cultivated along with USHG’s nearly two dozen restaurants. The company coined the term Enlightened Hospitality to describe an approach whereby suppliers, restaurant employees, host communities, investors, and the home-office team are all treated with the consideration and respect restaurants routinely show their guests.
Meyer theorized that serving those constituencies with the same regard that’s given to customers would translate into a strong, sustainable organization with outstanding financial success. He has yet to be proven wrong.
Wade is striving to give that culture a stamp of his own by emphasizing employees’ personal development. His stated aim: “To create and accelerate an environment of always learning and always teaching.”
He also voices pride in USHG’s commitment to diversity, equality, and inclusion at a time when DEI is squarely under attack in many quarters. “We want our restaurants, the guest space and the employees, to look like arguably the most diverse city on the globe, and that's here in New York,” he comments. “Of the seven leaders who report to me, six are women and two are of Asian descent.”
He’s personally felt the difference that appreciation from an organization’s leadership can make to the team. Wade recalls his exit interview with Joe Lee, then chairman of casual-dining giant Darden Restaurants, when he stepped down as SVP of Operations for the company's Smokey Bones chain to join Legal Sea Foods, a direct competitor to several of Darden’s brands.
“As you can imagine, I was a bit nervous,” recalls Wade. “He said to me, ‘I’m not here to talk you out of leaving.’ Then he did the most amazing thing: He gently grabbed my hand and said, ‘I want you to know you will always have a home at Darden.’”
Wade would indeed return to Darden after less than a two-year stint at Legal. This time around he rose to corporate SVP of Operations, then EVP of ops for Red Lobster, working under CEO Clarence Otis. Wade stayed with the brand after it was sold to a private-equity firm, Golden Gate Capital.
Otis, a director of USHG, remains a mentor. It was he who called Wade to tell him, “Danny would like to speak with you.”
Other high-touch mentors, he says, have included Wally Doolin, a CEO of TGI Friday’s during Wade’s 14 years with the granddaddy of casual dining, and Ray Blanchette, who became CEO of Friday’s after Wade had left.
All told, Wade has been in the business for 40-plus years, starting as an hourly in a Dunkin’ Donuts when he was 15. He’s managed along the way to indulge his passion for collecting rare and antiquarian books and spending time with his two adult-aged children. He even sneaks in a round of golf from time to time.
The job still gets him noticeably jazzed. He speaks with obvious enthusiasm, for instance, about the planned reopening next year of Maialino, the Italian restaurant that USHG had to close in 2023 after its host hotel was earmarked for conversion into a homeless shelter.
Critics raved about the food, but that’s not the reason it was Wade’s favorite restaurant. It was there that he started his tenure with USHG, meeting Danny Meyer on Day One for breakfast. Before the meal even began, Wade would get a full sense of the operation’s culture and how his job would be different from anything he’d experienced before.
"As he’s approaching me to say hello, I extend my hand to shake his," recalls Wade. “He literally pushes my hand away and he gives me a hug, a hug like I’d get from my brother.
“I remember thinking, ‘Who the hell hugs on a first day?’ I've learned now, coming up on seven years, that we and Danny Meyer do.”
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.