The 4 Restaurant Processes Worth Automating
Not every restaurant problem is an automation problem. These four are. They are repetitive, rule-based, and they happen on every service, every shift, every week — which means getting them right compounds into significant revenue and time savings.
1. Post-Visit Review Request
Reviews are the primary driver of new guest discovery for any restaurant competing in local search. The problem is that less than 5% of guests leave a review organically — they need to be asked, and they need to be asked at exactly the right moment. Research consistently shows that 72% of guests leave a review when asked at the right time in the right way. The right moment is 2 hours after checkout, when the meal is fresh and the experience is still vivid. The right way is a direct SMS with a one-tap link to your Google Business profile.
The compounding math: A restaurant adding 25 Google reviews per month goes from 40 reviews to over 300 in less than a year. That is not just a better rating — it is the difference between appearing in the Google Maps 3-pack for "best brunch downtown" and not appearing at all. Local search visibility for restaurants is almost entirely review-driven.
The satisfaction filter is the piece most restaurants miss. Routing unhappy guests to a private feedback form — rather than directly to Google — captures the feedback you need to act on while protecting your public rating from a 1-star review that could have been a conversation.
Step 1 Guest checks out via Toast or Square → 2hrs SMS with satisfaction check — "How was your experience tonight?" → Happy guests Direct link to Google Business review page → Unhappy guests Routed to private feedback form (never hits Google) → No response Follow-up email at 24hrs for non-responders
2. Reservation Confirmation & No-Show Prevention
The average restaurant no-show rate without automated reminders is 15–20%. With a proper confirmation and reminder sequence, that figure drops to 8–12%. The difference is a 24-hour reminder with a confirm or cancel link — a 30-second interaction that tells you which tables to hold and which to release to walk-ins or the waitlist.
One table, real money: A 50-seat restaurant turning 3 tables per night at $80 average check: a Friday no-show on a party of 6 is $480 in lost revenue from a single table. An automated reminder sent 24 hours before that reservation costs nothing to send and prevents the loss. At 3 prevented no-shows per week, that is $1,440 per week in recovered revenue — $5,760 per month from a one-time build.
The cancellation flag is equally important. When a guest cancels via the reminder link, the table status updates automatically so your host team can fill it from the waitlist in real time — not discover the cancellation when the party fails to arrive at 7:30pm.
Step 1 Reservation booked in OpenTable or Resy → Immediate Confirmation SMS or email to guest → 24hrs before Reminder with confirm/cancel link → Same day Additional reminder for parties of 4 or more → Cancellation Table flagged as available — host team notified instantly
3. Staff Shift Reminder Automation
Scheduling managers in restaurants spend an estimated 2–3 hours per week on shift confirmation calls and swap text chains. This is not a people problem — it is a systems problem. When the schedule lives in 7shifts or a shared Google Sheet, there is no reason a human being should be manually confirming that 20 staff members know when to show up.
The volume problem: A restaurant with 20 staff and an average of 3 shifts per person per week generates 60 shift confirmations to manage manually every single week. Automated shift reminders handle all 60 automatically — and flag the non-responses to the manager so coverage gaps are caught on Wednesday morning, not Saturday night at 5pm.
The no-response flag is the critical piece. When a staff member does not confirm within 8 hours of receiving a reminder, the manager receives an alert with the staff member's name and shift details — giving enough lead time to arrange coverage before it becomes a crisis.
Step 1 Schedule published in 7shifts or When I Work → Immediate Individual SMS to each staff member with their shift details → 24hrs before Shift reminder SMS sent to each team member → No response after 8hrs Manager alert — staff name, shift date, and time
4. Weekly Revenue & Labor Report
Most restaurant owners either fly blind or spend 45–60 minutes every Monday morning pulling covers, revenue, and labor costs from the POS and formatting them into a spreadsheet. Neither situation is acceptable when this entire process can be automated in 30 minutes of weekly execution — delivered to your inbox before your first coffee.
The data point that most owners are missing is real-time labor percentage. Restaurants that track labor as a percentage of revenue weekly rather than monthly catch cost overruns an average of 3 weeks earlier — which is 3 additional weeks to adjust scheduling before it hits the P&L. An automated report does not just save time. It gives you information you would not otherwise have until it was too late.
Monday 7am n8n triggers automatic POS data pull → Step 2 Covers, revenue, labor %, and top items pulled from POS API → Step 3 Data formatted into a clean weekly summary email → Delivered Owner and manager inboxes — before the week begins
What Does Restaurant Automation Cost?
Every build at Aplos AI is priced at a flat rate of $150/hr, scoped in hours before we start. No hourly surprise bills. No ongoing monthly retainers. You pay once for the build; you own it.
| Automation | Estimated Hours | Flat-Rate Range |
|---|---|---|
| Post-Visit Review Request | 20–30 hrs | $3,000–$4,500 |
| Reservation Confirmation & Reminders | 25–35 hrs | $3,750–$5,250 |
| Staff Shift Reminder Automation | 20–30 hrs | $3,000–$4,500 |
| Weekly Revenue & Labor Report | 30–45 hrs | $4,500–$6,750 |
Payback timeline: A restaurant recovering 3 no-shows per week at $480 average table revenue recovers $1,440 per week — $5,760 per month. The reservation reminder build pays back in the first month it runs. The review request build compounds over 6–12 months as your Google review count grows and local search ranking improves.
Does This Replace Toast or OpenTable?
No. We connect to your existing stack. If you have Toast and OpenTable and Resy, we build the layer that makes them trigger the right communication at the right time. You keep your existing subscriptions. You do not need to migrate to a new POS or learn a new reservation platform.
The automation layer runs on n8n — an open-source workflow automation tool that acts as the bridge between your existing software. It runs on your own infrastructure, which means your guest data never passes through a third-party SaaS platform you have not vetted. No proprietary portals. No per-message fees beyond your existing Twilio account. You own everything we build.
If something breaks or you want to adjust a message, a delay, or add a new step — you can, or we can handle it. The automations are documented and handed off fully, not held in a black box.
What Delivery Looks Like
From signed scope to live automation, most restaurant builds are delivered in 1–2 weeks. Here is exactly what that includes:
Loom video walkthrough — recorded for your GM, front-of-house manager, and owner so anyone on the team understands how each automation works. No mandatory live training sessions.
Written handoff document — covers how each automation works, how to troubleshoot common issues, what to do if a connection breaks, and where to find the logic if you need to adjust messaging or timing.
Full access — everything runs in your accounts. There are no proprietary portals to log into. You own the automation outright and can modify or extend it at any time.
On your end, we need: API access to your POS and reservation system, Twilio credentials for SMS, and approximately one hour for a final walkthrough to confirm everything is firing correctly with real reservation and checkout data.
Frequently Asked Questions
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