Built by an operator, for the line.
The low refrigerator under the line, where a cook keeps everything service needs within arm's reach.
During service a cook never walks to the walk-in. What the next ticket needs is already there, an arm's length away.
Running a restaurant group never felt like that. We paid for a register, a payroll system, a bookkeeping system, an invoice tool and an inventory tool. Each one was good at its job. None of them was open on a manager's phone at seven in the morning.
So we built the screen we wanted. Yesterday's numbers, today's forecast, the count, the order and the day's lists, in plain kitchen language, in English and Spanish. We built it inside Broad Street Oyster Co., on our own stores and our own numbers.
Along the way it started finding money. A line-by-line check of one vendor's invoices against the prices we had signed turned up months of overbilling, and the vendor agreed to credit it back.
That taught us what most restaurant software gets wrong. Finding the problem is the easy half. The hard half is getting it fixed on a Tuesday, by someone who is also running lunch. So every flag in lowboy is built to end in a job with a name, a due date and proof.
Other tools tell the owner what's wrong. lowboy is where the team fixes it.
Four things we won't bend on.
If a manager won't open it, it doesn't work.
Every screen is written the way a kitchen talks, and sized for a phone first.
A flag without a next step is noise.
If lowboy points at a problem, it should also hand someone the job of fixing it.
The kitchen speaks two languages.
So does every screen, with one tap to switch between English and Spanish.
Off the clock means off the clock.
No texts, emails or pings to anyone who isn't working. The work waits at the store.
See your own stores in lowboy.
Thirty minutes with the operator who built it. We'll go screen by screen and you can ask anything.