The best AI for restaurant management is co-designed, not dropped. Here’s why.
How many restaurant tech tools have you used that clearly weren't built by anyone who’s ever worked in the industry?
Because we’ve all seen it. Legacy vendors and industry giants promise the world, drop a generic, one-size-fits-all solution, and then vanish. You end up shoehorning your team’s hard-won processes into their rigid software grooves instead of the other way around.
It’s frustrating because the hospitality industry relies so much on experience and nuance.
A rainy Tuesday? That requires different staffing than a sunny Friday. A delayed 10am delivery? Your prep's behind, the lunch service is a battle, and your best manager is firefighting instead of leading. ‘Good’ service? Sure,you can look at the data, but it’s often the vibes in the room.
The best tech for restaurants isn't built in a vacuum by tech people who’ve never worked a shift; it’s co-designed with operators who live, breathe, and – mostly – enjoy the glorious complexity of this industry every day.
Essentially, we believe that to build a tool that actually survives a Friday night rush, you have to have lived through one. And the reason we’re best-placed to tackle everything from frantic fast-food chains and Michelin-starred dining, to coffee shops and event catering is our deep industry DNA.
Built by people who’ve been in your shoes
We aren't just engineers; we’re former bar managers, restaurant operators, and Michelin-starred veterans. Our CEO co-founded and still runs Mad Egg, a chain of chicken restaurants that serves as a literal test kitchen for our product. Many of our team have spent time on both buyer and supplier sides.
We like to get close to our customers. Every product engineer at Nory goes onsite with a customer in their first week. Unlike tech-first startups or legacy giants, we’re not just looking at code moving around a screen; we’re looking at how your team moves around during rush hour.
Why our co-design model is so effective
We came to the realisation quite early on that the traditional sales process, where we pitch a finished product, then head off to pat ourselves on the back, doesn’t work in hospitality.
Think of it this way: What if your tech partner sat down with your team every week, worked through your specific challenges, and made sure everything flowed perfectly in a real working environment?
Well, that's our co-design model in practice. Weekly working sessions, shared success criteria, and a commitment to launch at the scale of your business – not ours.
It’s not consultancy. We only use this process when we share a common goal: solving a fundamental problem like labour efficiency or waste. And the deep, candid feedback we get means we can spin on a dime and make quick changes on a week-to-week basis as we learn while building.
Toby, Head of Ops at a 200-site UK restaurant group, put it best:
The key to this project has been the speed of iteration… [and that’s] all down to how fast the team at Nory has been iterating with us!
Toby, Head of Ops
And David, a general manager at the same group agreed:
I have to say, with over 20 years experience in restaurants, I doubted this would ever work. But the schedules produced by Nory’s AI are now better than my own!
David, General Manager
That's a level of proximity legacy vendors aren't set up to deliver.
Analysing performance – and fine-tuning
Here’s the thinking: Because hospitality is based so much around nuance and fine-tuning, we can't just drop a generic tool and expect it to work.
Every restaurant operates differently. Your Tuesday lunch trade isn't the same as the lunch hour at the chain down the road. While other platforms leave you to figure out how to make their forecasting work, our team does the heavy lifting. They analyse your specific performance data, combing through the data and calibrating our models to your environment, from local weather to events in your area.
We stay locked in until the results are delivered. And we don't deploy when engineering says it's done; we deploy when operators say it's ready.
It’s about outcomes
Why do we work this way? Because we believe delivering software isn't the point – delivering outcomes is. Improving operator profitability requires a partnership, not just a subscription.
In other words, don’t settle for tech built in a vacuum. Partner with people who’ve been in your shoes.
Ready for a tech partner that sticks around until it works?
