Remember when having a website for your restaurant seemed optional? Nowadays, not having an online presence is unthinkable. AI is the next thing that’s becoming just as essential in our industry. It might sound futuristic, but it’s here and giving your competitors an edge.
In the early 2010s, many businesses believed that maintaining a presence on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter was good enough for their restaurant marketing needs. A 2012 New York Times article highlighted this perspective, noting that some restaurateurs found a Facebook page adequate for posting menus, photos, and updates, eliminating the need for a traditional website.
Fast forward to today, and about 75% of consumers choose a restaurant based on search results. Plus, 84% check out more than one place before deciding where to eat. Just as having a strong online presence became crucial, integrating AI tools is now key to staying competitive.
If you or your restaurant’s managers are still scheduling with pen and paper or relying on a “Help Wanted” sign in your window, you’re just as stuck in the past.
AI isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a new category of practical tools reshaping our industry. Let’s peel back the onion and see how adopting AI can make a difference in your restaurant.
Think of AI like a chef’s knife in the hands of Gordon Ramsay—it’s a tool that, when used skillfully, can create something extraordinary. With the right approach, AI can be the change your restaurant needs to stay profitable. It can help optimize logistics, manage finances, automate employee scheduling, and boost profitability. Essentially, it turns everyday operations into powerful engines for growth.
But growth isn’t just about increasing sales—it’s also about minimizing waste. To truly maximize profitability, you need to manage waste effectively.
If you’ve got more employees on the clock than you need or more food than you can sell, you’re throwing money away. Wasted time is wasted cash, and surplus food often ends up in the garbage.
We can talk about tools that help with customer engagement and online ordering, and those are great. But let’s think bigger. What about leveraging data to allocate labor and inventory across multiple locations?
For those running multi-location restaurants, AI solutions like FourthiQ can help you see the above store data from a new perspective. Imagine being prompted by a virtual assistant to shift staff and inventory to a location near a big basketball game or a concert. If you can leverage AI and predictive analytics to forecast customer demand, you can move resources to the right place at the right time. This cuts down on waste and maximizes profitability across all your locations.
But to make this strategy work seamlessly, you need the right team. Just like a perfect dish relies on quality ingredients, your restaurant’s success depends on having the right people.
This brings us to another crucial area where AI is making waves: recruitment and onboarding.
Restaurants that can’t meet demand lose 10-25% of gross revenue per store.
Finding the right people has always been challenging in the service industry, but AI is making it more manageable.
Imagine starting your day with a list of pre-screened candidates and scheduled interviews waiting for you. AI-powered hiring tools like PeopleMatter are changing the way restaurants manage the initial screening process, so you spend less time sorting through applications and more time engaging with top talent.
Job boards use a bidding system for postings, but manually managing bids across multiple platforms takes time and effort.
AI automates this process through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), constantly adjusting bids in real time to keep your job ads visible to top candidates without manual effort. This reduces key performance metrics like cost per applicant and improves the quality and quantity of workers.
One restaurant operations manager explained:
“We have 80,000 active employees, and our turnover is over 100%. Those are big numbers and a lot of volume, especially on the applicant side, on the applicant tracking side we need to be able to move through that really quickly.” — Manager, Texas Roadhouse.
With mobile-friendly features like “text to apply,” PeopleMatter makes it easy for managers to hire quickly so that they can focus on the business.
Labor shortages continue to challenge the food service industry, even when teams are sufficiently staffed. Modern restaurant technology helps steer through these hiccups more effectively.
AI scheduling aligns front-of-house (FOH) employee shifts with forecasts of actual demand, ensuring you have the right number of workers when needed. It also helps with retention by giving employees more transparency about their hours and preventing them from being overwhelmed during busy shifts.
At Chili’s Grill & Bar, for example, restaurant managers needed help with fluctuating customer demand, which led to overstaffing during slow periods and understaffing during busy times. To address this, they implemented Fourth’s AI-powered labor forecasting software and scheduling system. Using historical sales data from their POS systems, local events, and other variables, they became better able to predict customer traffic. As a result, Chili’s improved scheduling accuracy by 20% and saved 600 labor hours per week nationwide.
Dealing with labor laws for minors and Fair Work mandates across different states can make scheduling a real headache. Ensuring your schedules comply with all regulations while meeting your business needs can be challenging—especially with locations in multiple cities or states. That’s where Fourth’s restaurant labor compliance software comes in. With built-in labor compliance rules, you can forecast and schedule more accurately with AI while keeping your business compliant with labor laws.
Jim Hofer, Director of Training and Service Excellence at CRAVE Hospitality, noticed a significant improvement:
“Before HotSchedules, it was taking managers three to four hours to create schedules. Now, we’re seeing about a 75% decrease in time to generate schedules—to an hour or less.”
As Anthony Bourdain famously said:
“If you have a good experience in a restaurant, you tell two people. If you have a bad experience, you tell ten people.”
Bourdain stresses the impact customer experiences have on a restaurant’s reputation. In an industry where word of mouth can make or break your business, it is critical to ensure every guest leaves satisfied. Optimizing your workforce isn’t just about managing costs—it’s about assembling a team capable of delivering exceptional service consistently.
You support your team by having the right number of well-trained staff on hand—and that’s where AI steps in. With more accurate demand forecasting and optimized staffing, AI helps ensure each guest receives the attention they deserve.
“AI forecasting is a game changer. An accurate forecast is foundational; it drives our actions to make sure we get a good team and guest experience.”
Jason Noorian, Brinker International’s VP of Asset Management
By embracing AI, you’re optimizing schedules and improving the overall customer experience. In turn, satisfied customers are more likely to spread positive word of mouth, helping your restaurant succeed in a competitive market. This level of accuracy and adaptability is something that pen and paper simply can’t compete with.
So, we’ve optimized staffing and enhanced customer experiences—what’s next? Managing daily tasks more efficiently. Just as a well-coordinated kitchen runs smoothly when everyone knows their role, your entire restaurant can benefit from streamlined task management.
Fourth’s Restaurant Task Management Software lets you visualize productivity, assign tasks, and improve food and safety compliance. With access to over 70 industry-specific templates, you can ensure every task—from routine cleaning to critical compliance checks—is tracked and completed.
Keeping tabs on your team’s time and attendance is essential for payroll accuracy and labor cost management. Fourth’s integrated time clock solutions, like HotSchedules’ WebClock, allow employees to clock in and out seamlessly—but only when they’re physically at your restaurant location.
Geofencing technology guarantees that staff can’t clock in early or from outside of your location, reducing time theft and improving payroll accuracy. Your employee’s time sheets sync directly to payroll systems, minimizing human errors and ensuring your staff is compensated accurately for their time.
No more chasing down time cards or dealing with manual entry errors. With time tracking and geofencing, you can focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional dining experiences.
Communication among management is vital for consistent operations. Fourth’s Restaurant Manager Logbook provides a centralized platform for real-time updates, task assignments, and incident reporting. The digital logbook informs managers about what happened during the last shift and can access important information from any device.
CRAVE Hospitality needed a modern scheduling and communication solution to meet the demands of its millennial workforce. They partnered with Fourth to address several challenges:
in labor costs using overtime reports and enforced punctuality.
in the time it took managers to create schedules.
with Aloha point of sale.
Earlier, we discussed how excess inventory is money thrown in the garbage. Managing inventory effectively is one of the most significant challenges—and cost centers—in the restaurant industry. Overstocking leads to waste and increased costs, while understocking can result in missed sales and unhappy customers.
For restaurant businesses, tracking inventory is fundamental because it affects cost control, reduces waste, and ensures customers can order the meals they came in to enjoy!
Imagine always having the right ingredients on hand in your pantry without fear of spoilage and food waste. With AI-driven inventory management, you can make informed decisions that positively impact your bottom line and sustainability efforts.
For quick-service restaurants aiming to streamline back-of-house operations, MacromatiX—a cloud-based inventory management solution—is designed to remove silos and drive bottom-line growth. With near real-time data for restaurant managers, you can gain the insights needed to succeed in the back office and on the front line. MacromatiX uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to control food and labor costs and maintain consistent, predictable operations.
By integrating MacromatiX into your restaurant’s operations, you can:
But why stop at inventory? Just as AI algorithms help you manage your stock, they can also transform your payroll and financial processes. After all, as a restaurant owner, keeping your team happy and your finances in order is just as crucial as satisfying your customers. Ensuring that your employees are paid accurately and on time boosts morale and keeps you compliant with labor laws.
Fourth’s Payroll Management Software automates payroll calculations, tax deductions, and direct deposits. These automations reduce administrative burdens and ensure timely and accurate payments to your staff. You can focus more on your guests and less on paperwork by eliminating manual errors and streamlining the payroll process.
95% of workers prefer employers that offer on-demand pay
Employees with quick access to earnings are more likely to come to work. In fact, 74% of workers reported fewer unplanned absences because of on-demand pay.
When your payroll, POS, and tip payout software are integrated—like with Fourth’s Fuego—the process of paying out tips becomes seamless and automated. This not only allows employees to receive tips in real-time but also provides access to earned wages when they need them.
With Fourth’s integrated Restaurant Operations Suite, you can:
In an article by Lightspeed discussing whether restaurant servers should claim their tips, one respondent shared:
“Carrying cash tips after a late shift always made me uneasy. Switching to digital payouts has been a game-changer, letting me head home without that worry.”
Switching to digital tip payouts makes restaurant work safer. Employees no longer need to carry cash after late shifts, reducing the risk of theft or loss. Plus, digital payouts simplify cash management and ensure employees are paid accurately and on time.
AI better uses customer data, improves customer satisfaction, and enhances your manager’s operational efficiency. As you use AI technology in different parts of your restaurant, the next step is to look at the bigger picture. By bringing your data together, above-store reporting insights let you see how all your locations are doing. This data management platform is essential if you run several restaurants and want to consolidate and measure improvements.
Fourth iQ empowers managers to ensure compliance and drive consistent profitability across all locations. With Fourth, you get detailed reports and analytics, showing sales trends, labor costs, and inventory levels—not just for one place but across all your restaurants. This information helps you make smarter choices that boost efficiency and profits everywhere.
Dave Strong, VP of Operations at Marketplace Concepts, says:
“Over the past five years using Fourth, our labor costs have definitely decreased, thanks to the analytics it provides.”
From smarter recruitment and employee scheduling to accurate inventory management and simplified payroll, AI has broad, practical applications to improve your restuarant. Then by adding AI to above-store reporting, you can bring together all the benefits we’ve discussed—with a full view of every piece of data that helps you understand your business better.
This kind of insight and control is something legacy tools just can’t match.
Give us a call today +1 (877) 539-5156, or click the button below.
Want to see AI in action? Check out this FSTEC 2024 panel featuring Fourth’s CEO, Clinton Anderson, Jerry Phillips (VP of Technology at Whataburger), and Drew Broadnax (Director of Operational Finance at Brinker) as they explore the game-changing potential of AI in restaurant operations.
Give us a call today +1 (877) 539-5156, or click the button below.
Save time, reduce costs, and increase profitability with Fourth’s intelligent solutions.
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