Two AI workflows for Lettuce Entertain You, built from inside Aba.
I'm Brian Bruner. I wait tables at Aba on weekends. I also run a consulting practice teaching organizations how to use AI strategically. This site is two working ideas for where AI could create real value at LEYE, built around tools you already pay for through Google Workspace.
The Test
“Technology should only be implemented if it provides efficiency for employees or better hospitality to guests.”
Jennifer Bell, CMO, Lettuce Entertain You. Brand Innovators, 2024.
Every workflow on this page is tagged against that test.
Pre-Shift Briefing Chit
At pre-shift, the manager reads off a clipboard with the full picture: covers, VIPs, 86's, menu changes, weather, corporate notes. FOH leaves with a chit folded in the apron, the highlights they'll reference between tables. Today, the manager assembles both by hand.
The workflow
Gemini reads OpenTable, today's division email, BCD-tracked menu changes, weather, and local events. From the same pull, it generates two outputs in Aba's voice: the manager's full clipboard, and the FOH pocket chit. Manager edits one line and prints. 45 minutes of assembly disappears.
The math
30 min × 2 shifts × 7 days = 7 hrs/week per manager. At $30 loaded, 52 weeks, 130 restaurants: ~$1.4M a year in recovered manager hours, redirected to the floor.
FOH Training Notebook
A new server or bartender at Aba walks in to a firehose. The menu, a wine list deep in rare Mediterranean labels, a rotating cocktail program, allergens by dish, table numbers, house standards. By the end of week one they're expected to deliver all of it to guests confidently. Most retain a fraction. The binder lives in the office, not in their pocket.
The workflow
Drop Aba's training materials, menu books, allergen sheets, and SOPs into a NotebookLM hub built on the Aba Austin BCD. Audio overviews for the commute home. Quizzes on demand. New hires study on their own time, reinforce what they learned during shift, and walk back in with the menu in their pocket. The training team's work compounds instead of evaporating between shifts.
The math
5 hours of repetitive Q&A freed up per hire × $25 loaded = $125 of training capacity returned per hire. 2,870 new FOH hires a year across LEYE: $358K floor in training capacity redirected to coaching and floor time. The real win is consistency across 130 restaurants. The Dallas opening alone is 80 to 100 new hires in two weeks.
Sources: Restroworks, 2025 and Homebase, 2025.
One asset under both.
Every workflow on this page runs on a Business Context Document: a single document that tells AI exactly who the restaurant is, what's on the menu tonight, who the regulars are, and what voice the brand speaks in.
Built once. Refreshed when the menu rotates. Owned by the operator, not by a vendor. Without one, AI is a stranger guessing. With one, it sounds like Aba.
Every one of these runs on a Business Context Document. Build one. Or have one built for you.
