In Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara recounts how everyone at his restaurant company was primed to seek out ways to improve the guest experience. One came up when a guest mentioned she would have to leave mid-meal to put some coins in a parking meter.

They offered to do that for her, which obviously made it a great experience for her. And it could have ended there. A good experience for one guest.

But they didn’t stop. They celebrated the example and then figured out how to systematize it.

Guidara Writes:

“Eventually, that gesture became one of our steps of service. The host would ask guests, ‘How’d you get here tonight?’ If they responded, ‘Oh, we drove,’ he’d follow up with, ‘Cool! Where’d you park?’ If they told him they were by a meter on the street, he asked which car was theirs so one of us could run out and drop a couple of quarters into the box while they were dining.

“This gesture was the definition of a grace note, a sweet but nonessential addition to your experience. It was an act of hospitality that didn’t even take place within the walls of the restaurant! But this simple gift—worth fifty cents—blew people’s minds.

“Systemizing it turned it from an act of heroism into a matter of course, like checking your coat or offering a dessert menu. And the more normal it became for us to give this little gift, the more extraordinary it seemed to be for the people receiving it.”