Welcome to the Nightowl Book Club—where faith, leadership, and caffeine collide. Each review explores timeless principles from great books and how they shape the way we lead, serve, and create unforgettable experiences in the world of coffee catering.
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Book That Rewired How I Lead
I’ve been enthusiastic about publishing this book review on Unreasonable Hospitality since the moment I took back over our Party Blog in July 2025—when we announced a new tap truck offering to our catering fleet. As I highlighted passages and organized notes from Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality, I realized one post wouldn’t do this literary contribution to business leadership justice. So I present to you Part One of this three-part series.
From barista to owner, and everything in between—and the help of Will Guidara—I will share the lessons I’ve learned about service and leadership through the lens of what I believe is the gold standard for building a company that lasts. This book doesn’t just teach tactics—it reframes the purpose of business. It reminds us that “we have an opportunity—a responsibility—to make magic in a world that desperately needs more of it.” That line alone is worth adding to your company's impact statement.
Timeless businesses aren’t built on trends or clever marketing cycles. They’re built on the foundational principle that “the human desire to be taken care of never goes away.” If that’s true—and I believe it is—then hospitality isn’t an add-on to your business model. It IS the business model.
🎨 Create a Culture of Hospitality
The most famous line in the book—and possibly my favorite—is this: “Service is black and white; hospitality is color.”
What does that mean to you? To me, black and white means competence and efficiency. It means doing the job. Color means making people feel great about the job you’re doing for them—creating a memory, brand loyalty, or an experience someone will never forget.
Getting the right drink to the right person is service. Making a good latte—service. Genuinely engaging the guest so you create connection—that’s hospitality. Concluding service on time is—you guessed it—service. Concluding service 14 minutes late to give your client the best possible end-to-end experience is hospitality.
But here’s the part that changed how I lead: you cannot expect your team to deliver color if they’re living in black and white internally. And yes, that's my quote not Will's. So at Nightowl, we do something that sounds backward to most entrepreneurs: we prioritize our team over our clients. Yes, really.
We believe if you “hire great people, treat them well, and invest deeply into their personal and professional growth—they will take care of your customers.” And that’s exactly what happens. When I think of our team I think of our incredible event leads. I think of Pablo and the experience he created for 40 female business leaders meeting over a weekend to change their family's lives. I think of Erik, who has created such an incredible relationship with clients that IPSEN flies him all over the world to serve their conferences. I think of Ellis, who elevates the enthusiasm and excitement of every event he works, including this Katy Trail activation with 33.9 Sneakers. I think of Shiloh and Solomon creating a magical branded coffee cart experience for CAT, while Anya and Cameron consistently represent the gold standard for what energy, joy and skill should look like in coffee catering. I think of Skylar and Dianna embracing each and every client like they were a part of their team and Maria for a work ethic that goes unmatched. When our team feels valued, trusted, and developed, they naturally extend that same energy to every guest.
Our greatest competitive advantage isn’t scale, marketing strategy, branding capabilities, or even product innovation—it’s a culture of taking care of each other. Hospitality flows downstream. Leadership sets the emotional temperature of the room long before the client ever chooses Nightowl as their coffee catering solution.
👯 Make Your People Feel Part of Something
When you build a hospitality-first culture, metrics improve. Retention improves. Guest feedback improves. Heck, Christmas parties and team photoshoots improve. But here’s the deeper truth—and here’s why being relentless in hospitality is so much fun: “hospitality is a selfish pleasure. It feels great to make other people feel good.”
When your team feels part of something meaningful—something bigger than a shift or a paycheck—they show up differently. Family is not a buzzword. It’s a strategy. They anticipate needs. They lean in. They look for moments to surprise and delight. And guests feel that difference instantly. That joy becomes contagious.
🚀 Go Above and Beyond
Guidara writes, “How we serve our clients is as valuable as what we serve.”
At Nightowl, we focus on people over product. That doesn’t mean the product suffers—it means we obsess over how the guest experiences it. The drink matters. The branding matter. The staffing matters. But the emotional takeaway matters more.
Walk into most coffee shops and you’ll hear, “Here you go.” Transaction complete. Efficient. Black and white.
Hospitality sounds like: “Give that a taste and make sure it’s perfect for you. Is it? Pinky promise?”
Another example is how we never say no. A guest asking for a caramel drizzle Frappuccino is met with, “I’ve got something similar you’ll love coming right up,” instead of, “No, we don’t have that.”
It’s a small shift in language, but a massive shift in intention. One ends a transaction. The other opens a relationship.
Guidara shares a moment after his mother passed away when Chef Boulud and his team gave his family “four of the best hours” of his life in the middle of profound grief. That story hit me. It proves that hospitality isn’t fluff—it’s power. Even in sorrow, it can create light. Even in chaos, it can create calm. The opportunity we have to impact even 30 seconds of someone’s life should never be taken for granted. Remember, “people will forget what you do; they’ll forget what you said. But they’ll never forget how you made them feel.”
That’s not just a quote—it’s foundational to the operation of our business. We prime every team member to look for small opportunities to create a memory by going above and beyond—ways to make an experience more seamless, memorable, and delightful. When you do that consistently, you “systemize an act of heroism into a matter of course.” What once felt extraordinary becomes your standard.
We recently rehired a former staff member after a few years away. We remembered them as a superstar and were enthusiastic to have them back. However, when they returned, we were no longer impressed. They hadn’t declined in skill or heart—we had just raised the bar. Our expectations had evolved, and the standard for being a leader on our team had increased tremendously. Our culture had matured. That’s what constant, gentle pressure toward improvement does. It compounds.
🦢 Be the Swan
Okay, here’s my favorite section. Because in business development, marketing, and guest experience, perception is reality.
I took my family on vacation to Crested Butte, Colorado last summer. On my drive into town, I noticed something I’ll never forget. A construction company on a commercial project had concluded work for the day and parked their construction fleet in a perfect line across the 100-yard site. The trucks weren't parked in normal parking spots—but in a perfect line down the middle of the multi-acre project. It was beautiful. Had I been in a hiring position for a general contractor, I would’ve hired that firm immediately—simply based on perception.
Because one thing is true: the way you do one thing reveals the way you’ll most likely do all things. A construction company that understands their client’s property should remain beautiful—even during construction—is likely to hold that same conviction through the actual work.
The way we load in, the way we park our vehicles, the way we tape down electrical cords, the way we help other vendors, and the way we treat our clients’ space says everything about how we’re going to deliver a coffee catering experience.
Guidara describes hospitality like a swan: guests should see a graceful glide across the water—not the webbed feet churning furiously beneath the surface. That image captures our world perfectly. Behind the scenes are early mornings, tension, demanding installs, logistical challenges, equipment failure, and long, demanding days. There are group texts at 4a.m., backup plans for backup plans, and countless invisible adjustments. But in front of the guest? Calm. Collected. Effortless. The magic is real. The effort is invisible.
That’s unreasonable hospitality. And it’s only the beginning of what this book challenges us to build.
If you’re ready to create an experience your guests remember long after the last sip, we’d love to serve you.
Book your DFW coffee catering experience here:
👉 https://nightowlcoffeecart.com/book
