Whitney Museum of American Art Moved to the Meatpacking District

For some reason I thought the Whitney Museum was in midtown. Shows how much things have chnged. I was invited to check out the NEW Whitney museum. It opened last May 2015 at 99 Gansevoort Street with a downstairs cafe called Untitled - a Danny Meyer restaurant. 

I had the opportunity to have breakfast at Untitled and listen to Danny talk about his career from Union Square Cafe, Marta, Shake Shack among many others. I always find it fascinating to hear a leader's philosophy on how best to run their company and manage their employees. One topic of interest is tipping. Danny's restaurants don't permit tipping because he feels his employees should be offering the best service regardless of a potential tip amount.

Another fascinating story was how Shake Shack was created - in brief, it started with an initiative to clean up and make Madison Square Park safe, which lead to an art installation of a taxi / hot dog stand that actually served food. Union Square Cafe was called to assist with providing service and food at no cost to the park. However, after the art installation was gone, people still kept on looking for the food. To this day, Shake Shack pays rent to Madison Square Park for operating on the premises (and enabling park maintenance). The timing couldn't be more perfect considering that Union Square Cafe is expected to re-open on December 8, 2016.

The Whitney Museum is a fantastic place for events. I got to take a tour of the venue and took a few photos of the potential areas to hold an event, below. The space is well-equipped for whatever kind of meeting you want, including boardrooms with foyers, an auditorium with stadium seating and terraces for outdoor soirees. 

The Museum is available for corporate event rentals and commercial film, video and photo shoots. However, private rentals by individuals for parties, weddings, etc. are not possible. Well, unless you're a donor that contribues $100,000 annually. 

For more information regarding events/membership at The Whitney, visit:

http://whitney.org/Support/Corporate/EntertainingOpportunities

OF COURSE I had to take a picture with Danny Meyer. After all, I'm a foodie and a groupie at the same time!  

~T~