SINCE MID-MARCH, Danny Meyer, the Union Square Hospitality Group CEO and Shake Shack founder, has closed 19 restaurants, laid off 2,000 employees, and felt the wrath of the Twitterverse after the burger chain was granted a $10 million small-business government loan (which, the day after we conducted this interview, it returned). We spoke with him about sheltering in place en famille in Connecticut, structural flaws in the government’s stimulus plan, and senior shopping hour.
You were one of the first to close all your restaurants days before the city lock-down. Can you walk us through that timeline? In February, we started to see a huge number of private parties canceling. Then, on March 5, we hosted an annual breakfast at the Modern, and the Monday after that, there was a…