If you can’t read it in this crappy picture, the sign says that Cork Wine Bar will be closed from Aug. 31 to Sept. 6. The reason? The restaurant’s annual summer vacation “to give our staff some time to rest.”

Cork would seem to grasp the idea that a neighborhood restaurant’s hospitality extends beyond its customers. It reminds me of the great Danny Meyer‘s philosophy of “enlightened hospitality” on which he built an empire of restaurants in New York (and coming soon to D.C.).

The philosophy stands the standard hospitality hierarchy on its head; in his book Setting the Table, Meyers writes that the most important group to a restaurant’s success is its employees, followed by its customers, its community, its suppliers, and, finally, its investors.

Cork’s annual vacation time seems like enlightened hospitality to me.