How should I use AI in my restaurant?

Let's face it, lots of restauranteurs are hesitant to adopt the newest technologies. As a restauranteur myself, I can remember how reluctant I was to buy a Robot Coupe for my kitchen because I believed in doing things "the traditional way." 

And when it comes to software, well, we've been slower to move than most other industries. To our credit, over the past 4 years, we've accelerated our technology spend, and we finally feel caught up with the times with our bright and shiny 3PD tools, guest satisfaction software, and kiosks. But now, it's 2025, and all of a sudden, we feel behind the times again. AI has taken the world by storm and we're wondering what it means for us.

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Take a look around

If you read the news lately, all you hear is how AI is coming for everyone's jobs. And it's starting with the biggest companies who are cutting thousands of employees at a clip like Salesforce, Microsoft, Meta. But it's not just the big tech companies - it's Banks, Hotels, and of course good ol' Uncle Sam. But why? Well, let's break it down.

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Some AI is great and not all AI works for restaurants

First off, the AI that everyone is hyped up about is LLM (Large Language Models). These are the models that allow computers to use Natural Language to understand and generate human language. Basically, it can read everything that we humans have written and LLMs allow us to ask questions and get answers back. You've probably already heard of ChatGPT and used it.

LLMs have been great at:

1) Doing work that uses a lot of data

2) Doing repetitive tasks that humans don't like to do and are error prone

3)Doing 1+2 above, 10x faster, more accurately, while never complaining or taking a break

And this is precisely the reason why you're seeing the biggest companies in the world adopt AI so quickly. From Software Engineering (code is a language), Finance (lots of data), and Sales jobs (repetitive) - AI can do a lot of the work that a human would do, but faster, more accurately, and without taking a break.

There are other types of AI that some restaurants have tried - robots, etc - but those are still years away from becoming truly effective and cheap enough for restaurants to deploy. So when you hear the term "AI," don't automatically think of the robot waiter or drone delivery bot. There is AI today that is cheap, easy to deploy, and can do the job.

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So how should I use AI in my restaurant?

Let's use some analogies based on the industries that I mentioned above:

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Just like Hotels

We have guest facing jobs that can be improved with AI.  Kiosks are a form of AI. So are table top payment tablets. They automate a repetitive and error-prone task, in human language, and do it more accurately without ever taking a break. As we know, most of the largest chains have deployed these systems because it cuts down on labor costs and in many ways improves the guest experience.

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Just like the Banks

Restaurants have a lot of repetitive and error prone financial work: data pulling, data entry, spreadsheets and calculations, and distribution of reports.

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Just like Government

The Government uses companies like Palantir to analyze huge data sets and come up with battle plans. We know our restaurants are like going to battle every day and our action plans in the field are what determines if we win or not. We have large amounts of operational data created by the 10+ software systems we use daily that we must aggregate, analyze, and put into action.

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It's just a matter of time. And the time is yesterday.

And back to that Robot Coupe. I don't think more than a day went by until I asked myself why I ever had my team cut the cabbage, carrots, or shredded radish by hand. The machine was 20x faster, 100x more consistent and gave my team time back to do things they loved - actual cooking, not just hours of prep drudgery. If I had only embraced the future sooner, we would have had more time to focus on the more important things, and I would have had happier employees and happier guests.

So is AI coming for the jobs in our industry? Yes. But it's taking the ones that humans find repetitive, boring, and error prone. And just like our trusty Robot Coupes and blenders, it will leave our humans to do what they do best, so the guests are happier and the company can grow more profitably.

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