AI for your venue, in one page.
Track your off-the-floor time for a week. It almost always leaks into four places: the phone, no-shows, the roster, and suppliers. Hand the repetitive admin to AI and automation, and keep the food and the hospitality firmly with your people. Start with the biggest leak, using what you already pay for.
A no-show table can be a hundred-plus dollars gone. Cut it with automated SMS reminders for everyone and a deposit or card hold on high-risk bookings (Now Book It or SevenRooms): typically a 30 to 65 percent drop. About one call in three goes unanswered; an AI phone agent (Otto, AI-Menu) turns that into a booking.
- Brain, not oracle: ChatGPT or Claude drafts menus, specials, captions and review replies. Treat it as a first draft.
- Set the scene: tell it who you are, the job, your tone, and the format. The more context, the more it sounds like you.
- Save a prompt pack: keep the prompts that work, with your tone baked in, so each draft starts on-brand.
- Human eye on everything: check facts and tone before it posts, especially replies to unhappy reviews.
- Wage theft is criminal in Australia since Jan 2025; penalty-rate slips are the biggest risk.
- Roster from your POS sales data so staffing matches real demand, not a guess.
- Use AU-built Deputy or Tanda to interpret the Modern Award and do the penalty-rate maths.
- Make your POS (Square, Lightspeed) the hub; let bookings, rostering and ordering feed off it.
- At-table ordering (me&u via Doshii) suits some venues, not all. Decide on your service style.
- Tighten supplier ordering and cut waste with Ordermentum, tied to what you actually use.
- Days 1 to 30: ........................................
- Days 31 to 60: ......................................
- Days 61 to 90: ......................................
Pick the one win that pays for itself, prove it, then add the next. Measure the numbers, keep what earns its place. Always a human on the food and the floor.