AI in Your Restaurant: How Operators Can Save Hours, Increase Profit, and Build Smarter Systems Today

AI in Your Restaurant: How Operators Can Save Hours, Increase Profit, and Build Smarter Systems Today

https://restauranttopia.com/

Episode Summary
In this high-energy, highly practical episode, Brian Seitz and Dave Ross break down the real-world, right-now ways AI can support restaurant operators. Whether you're hesitant, curious, or already all-in, this conversation will help you understand how to use AI to cut time-wasting tasks, improve menu performance, strengthen training, and build your own custom GPT to run sharper operations.

AI isn't a trend — it's the next major shift in how restaurants operate. And the opportunity? Massive. Dave and Brian share exactly how they're using AI daily and walk through simple, battle-tested use cases that any operator can start implementing this week.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

✔ Why AI in restaurants is not a fad — and why ignoring it puts operators behind
✔ Real use cases for AI in restaurants:

• Menu engineering & PMIX analysis in minutes
• Staff training + SOP creation
• Inventory and ordering optimization
• Marketing workflows (newsletters, social media, content)
• Customer service, phone ordering, and reservation automation

✔ How to create your own custom GPT for your restaurant

• What to upload
• How to train it
• How to empower managers and staff with a "digital assistant"

✔ What to avoid when starting with AI

• Privacy pitfalls
• Over-automation
• Connecting systems too quickly

✔ Quick wins to try this week

• Replace 5–10 weekly Google searches with AI prompts
• Use voice prompting to train your AI assistant on the go
• Build SOPs, onboarding documents, or menu descriptions with a single prompt
• Use AI for specials based on your current order guide

Sample Prompts You Can Copy & Use

Menu Engineering Prompt:
"Analyze this PMIX and identi