What has changed in the dining room since the first house opened, and what has not.
The first house opened on a beach in Mexico in 1963. Sixty years later the group runs restaurants and hotels on four continents, and it is fair to ask what is left of that first dining room.
What has changed
Almost everything you can see. The guest books from a phone, reads the menu before arriving and has eaten in more cities than the waiter. Kitchens run on data that did not exist, purchasing is centralised across countries and a house can open in a city the group has never operated in before and hold the standard from the first night.
What has not
A house is still judged at eleven on a Saturday, when it is full and the kitchen is behind. The guest still remembers how they were received more than what they ordered. And the team is still the product: no system replaces the person who notices that a table is waiting.
Sixty years: a boom, a crash, and knowing which one taught more.
