Woody Wu / Forward-Deployed AI for Hospitality & Wine
AI Deployment for Hospitality, From an Operator Who Runs the Floor
I find the one workflow worth automating, ship it on the systems you already use, and prove what it saves. Not AI consulting. Forward-deployed AI, from the dining room.
Service Audit / From $3,500 / Fixed scope
The work
Most restaurant AI fails before it starts
Ninety-five percent of AI projects fail, and almost never because the model was wrong. They fail because someone automated the wrong thing: a problem that did not matter, or one that needed a human. The people selling AI to restaurants have never worked a Saturday service. They cannot tell which of your problems is worth solving, so they sell you all of them.
The work
I read the floor, then I ship
I run dining rooms and wine programs at the highest level of the industry, and I build the AI myself. That combination is the whole job. I sit in your business, find the one workflow that is quietly costing you money or hours, build a tool that fixes it on the systems you already run, and prove the result in your own numbers. Then I stay until your team trusts it.
The engagement
Audit, build, prove
The Audit. One to two weeks. I map your real workflows and hand you a ranked decision document: what to automate, what to leave alone, and what each is worth. You own it whether or not we go further.
The Deployment. I ship the winning workflow against your data, with human approval and a full audit trail, on top of your existing systems.
The Standard. Every month, I prove it is still earning, report it in P&L language, and find the next thing worth building.
The lane
Who I work with
Wineries, importers, and wine retail, where the domain knowledge is already there and does not need explaining.
Hospitality groups, independent restaurants, boutique hotels, and new-venue openings outside my own market.
Restaurant technology and POS companies who need a hospitality specialist they can bring into a client engagement.
If you are a restaurant in my own city, I will tell you so and point you toward someone good. The work only holds up if the lane is clean.
See the work
Products, thinking, and operator context.
Direct answers
Before we begin.
How much does AI consulting for a restaurant cost?
A service audit starts at $3,500, fixed price, agreed before any work begins. Deployment and ongoing measurement are scoped and quoted after the audit, because the honest number depends on what the audit finds. If you move from an audit to a deployment, the audit fee is credited toward it. Most businesses should start with the audit regardless, because it tells you whether a deployment is worth buying at all.
Will AI replace my staff?
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. The work worth automating in a restaurant is the work nobody wanted: answering the same question forty times before service, reconciling inventory, drafting schedules, writing allergen sheets. The work that makes a room worth returning to is reading a table, and no model does that. In practice this gives managers back hours they were losing to admin, which is the opposite of replacing them.
What can AI actually do in a restaurant?
Reliably: answer guest questions before service, hold an entire wine list without misquoting a price, synthesize guest history before a shift, draft review responses, reconcile inventory, generate SOP and allergen documentation, and prompt upsells that fit the table. Unreliably: anything that requires judgment about the person standing in front of you. Knowing where that line sits in your specific business is the whole job.
How do you measure the value?
In your numbers, not a vendor's. Manager admin hours reclaimed, comp and error reduction, check average movement, covers protected during peak, and labour cost per reclaimed task. Every engagement produces a scorecard, and the monthly retainer exists to prove the tool is still earning. Most AI projects skip this step entirely, which is why most of them cannot tell you whether they worked.
Do you work with wineries?
Yes. Wineries, importers, and wine retail are core clients, not an adjacent category. I hold WSET and ISG Diplomas and have built wine programs at the highest level, so the domain knowledge is already there. Typical work: tasting notes and technical sheets that sound like the producer rather than a machine, allocation and customer matching, direct-to-consumer communication, and trade education material.
Start with the problem
What is quietly costing you time or money?
Four useful details are enough. I will reply personally, and I will tell you plainly if the problem is not worth automating.
The Service Audit
Know what is worth building before you buy the build.
Two weeks. A ranked decision document. Yours whether or not we work together again.