SaaS · Operations
Restaurant management system
An all-in-one platform for restaurants that outgrew Excel but don't want to pay US prices for US subscriptions.
Context
Small and mid-size restaurants in Guatemala are trapped between two extremes: physical notebooks and Excel sheets nobody understands at month-end, or US POS systems that charge in dollars and ship features built for 200-location chains.
There’s nothing in between. That gap is the project.
Problem
A restaurant with two cooks, four servers and an owner who also runs the register needs to solve five things every day:
- Know what was sold and how much came in
- Know what’s in inventory without opening the storeroom
- Know which tables are taken and for how long
- Know whether a dish is actually profitable or losing money
- Close the day without adding up tickets by hand
Most end up using three separate apps that don’t talk to each other, plus a notebook.
Design decisions
One interface, three roles. Server, kitchen and admin see the same information organized differently. It’s not three apps, it’s one with permissions.
Offline-first. In Guatemala the connection drops. If the internet goes out mid-service, the app keeps taking orders and syncs when the signal returns.
Reports an owner understands. No decorative charts. How much you sold today, how much it cost you, how much you kept. Margin per dish, not just price.
Setup in a day. The client doesn’t need a consultant. Import the menu from a CSV, configure tables, and go.
Result
The system went live in a pilot restaurant in El Progreso. In the first two months they cut daily close time from about an hour to fifteen minutes, and found three dishes that sold well but lost money due to miscalculated costs.
Why it matters
This project is the foundation of a broader SaaS product I’m building. The idea: any restaurant in Central America should be able to stop fighting Excel without learning English or paying in dollars.