Union Square Cafe – 30-year-old icon

Walking across New York's Union Square last Wednesday with Danny Meyer at 7.45 am in the autumn sunshine as farmers were finishing setting up their stalls for their Greenmarket, I was in the ideal position to pick up on several major changes that have taken place since Meyer opened Union Square Cafe 30 years ago to the day (he is pictured here outside the restaurant's previous incarnation).

The first was that although there had been a market there before the restaurant, it was much smaller and functioned only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Today, thanks to the current synergy between the...