Notes
Notes from the floor.
Where the hours go across a handful of stores, and what I'd fix first. Written the way I'd say it to another operator, not the way a vendor writes a white paper.
11 notes
- Field notesWe are too small for this. Are we?Size is not how many locations you have. It is whether somebody does the same task by hand every week. A simple test for whether it is worth your time, the cases where you genuinely are too small, and the arithmetic to check.
- Field notesIs AI coming for restaurant jobs? An operator's answerIt is not going to run a line, calm a table or cover a call-out. What it does take is paperwork, and some of that paperwork is somebody's whole job. An honest answer, and what to tell your team before they guess.
- PlaybookSetting par levels without guessingMost pars were set the week the store opened and have not been touched since, while the menu and the volume both moved. How to reset them from what you actually use, and when an item has earned a second look.
- Field notesForecasting covers from the history already in your POSYou do not need a forecasting product to know roughly how busy next Thursday will be. You need three past Thursdays, side by side, and a written list of the things your sales history cannot know.
- Field notesWhy we start on the floor, not in a slide deckEvery AI training I have sat through opened with what a large language model is. Nobody in a restaurant needs that. What actually gets a team using something is starting with a job they already hate.
- PlaybookGuest replies that still sound like youThe fastest way to make a restaurant sound like a chain is to automate its review replies badly. What to hand over, what never to, and the test that catches a reply before it goes out sounding like nobody.
- Field notesWhat to do with six weeks of POS exportsEveryone tells you the answers are in your data. Nobody tells you what to do with forty spreadsheets on a Tuesday. Three questions worth asking of it, and the one that is not worth your afternoon.
- PlaybookThe prep list is the best first AI projectNot because it is the most valuable thing you could automate. Because it is the one where being wrong is cheap, the answer is checkable by lunchtime, and the person who has to trust it is standing right there.
- Field notesManagers are still doing this by handThe Monday packet gets rebuilt out of three systems before anyone opens their mouth. That hour is assembly, not analysis, and it is the first hour I would take off a district manager.
- Field notesThe Sunday night schedule is a tellIf your GMs still build next week in a spreadsheet after close, the scheduler you already pay for did not survive its first short week. What to fix, and why the GM still writes the schedule.
- PlaybookSomebody is still keying invoices by handRetyping vendor invoices quietly costs a multi-store group hours every week. Do the arithmetic on your own numbers, get most of it back without buying anything, and keep a person on the part that matters.
Still writing
- PlaybookWhat an ops team should automate first
- Field notesGetting your GMs to actually use the thing after training day
- Field notesWhat to do when your POS vendor says they already have AI
- PlaybookRolling out to one store first: the pilot that proves something
Written for operators running a handful of stores, and meant to be forwarded to one. If you want the short version about your own group, take the free check — eight questions, no email.