AI guides, tools and comparisons for Australian cafes, restaurants, bars and food service businesses.
Ask any cafĂ© owner or retail manager what eats their time and the answer is almost always the same: answering the same questions, over and over. “Do you have tables this Saturday?” “Is the blue one available in a size 10?” “What’s your returns policy?” “Can I get a refund?” These aren’t hard questions. They’re…
Last week, a Good Food journalist spent two months scrolling through hundreds of Australian hospitality venues online. What she found tells you pretty much everything about where AI marketing stands right now: over 100 restaurants and cafĂ©s using AI-generated content across menus, websites and social media, with results ranging from $10,000 saved on branding to…
Last week, Inc.com ran a piece arguing that businesses should hire an AI receptionist, and that they pay for themselves faster than you’d expect. It’s a solid US case, but the numbers don’t translate directly to Australia. Different labour costs, different phone culture, different booking software. So we did the maths ourselves for three common…
Hospitality is one of the most AI-ready industries in Australia. Reservations, rostering, inventory, customer reviews: almost every back-of-house headache has a purpose-built tool sitting on top of it. And yet, according to Tourism Research Australia’s January 2026 report, only 34% of Australian hospitality businesses use any form of AI for operations. That’s up from 11%…
If you run a cafĂ©, restaurant, or retail store in Australia, getting rostering and payroll right isn’t optional. One wrong call on penalty rates or Modern Award conditions means underpayment claims, Fair Work investigations, and payroll runs that eat your Friday afternoon. Two local platforms dominate this space: Employment Hero and Tanda. Both are Australian-built,…
Australian restaurants miss 77 million phone calls a year. Before you sign up for an AI phone system, here’s what cafĂ© and restaurant owners in Australia need to know.
Most payment processor comparisons treat all small businesses the same. Restaurants aren’t like other small businesses. Split bills, table management, EFTPOS reliability during a Saturday night rush, these are requirements a generic payment guide ignores. Here’s how the main options stack up for Australian restaurants specifically. Square for Restaurants Square’s hospitality product is the strongest…
You lose a customer every time they ring and get voicemail. You lose another one when the wrong person shows up to the same slot. And that no-show last Tuesday? The one that cost you two hours and nobody chased? These are not bad luck. They are what happens when your booking process runs on…
What Ordermentum Does Ordermentum is a Melbourne-based B2B ordering platform built for the food and beverage industry. It sits between hospitality venues: cafes, restaurants, bars, hotels: and their wholesale suppliers, replacing the mix of phone calls, emails, WhatsApp messages, and paper order forms that most of the industry still relies on. Through the Ordermentum app,…
If you looked at AI tools for your cafĂ© in early 2025 and decided it was too complicated or too expensive, it’s worth another look. The options have improved, the pricing has dropped, and the integrations with the software most cafĂ©s already use. Square, Lightspeed, Deputy: have gotten much tighter. Here’s what’s changed and what’s…