For deBary, just embarking on his career as a bartender with the Momofuku Group, it was like a bible. But in an op-ed published last year in Food & Wine, he argued it was time to rethink Meyer’s philosophy of hiring workers with “emotional intelligence” who thrive on caring for others. When I spoke to deBary, he explained that it created a norm where servers had to “capitulate to every desire of the guests. Maybe it was true to an extent, but it got kind of weaponized and went from this rarefied luxury to something expected.”