9. Amy Walsh: Forget Essential Become Incidental

16 years ago, Amy and Andy Walsh had a vision for Mickey’s Irish Pub: a true pub environment with elevated beer and gastropub cuisine, where people actually talked to one another. The high school sweethearts had met while working in a restaurant decades earlier and knew what it would take to make a hospitality endeavor work.  They pulled out most of the pub’s televisions, unleashed Andy (a trained chef) and his culinary talents on the menu, and focused Amy, who holds a degree in hospitality management,  on finding and developing a staff that would be capable of ensuring the owner/operator couple would become incidental, rather than essential, to the daily operation. The result? In an industry with 80%+ turnover rates, the Walshs have kept their team in place for years. They love being in their restaurant but never hesitate to leave their team in charge--proving that when you care about and empower your people, success follows.