Running Your Restaurant More Efficiently: Which Questions Can AI Help Answer?

Running a restaurant isn’t just about cooking good food. Filling the room, making good use of your tables, getting through peak hours smoothly and not keeping guests waiting matter more every day.

In this article we look at a few questions restaurant operators often ask, and where AI fits in. We’re building Mihman AI together with our first restaurants; below we clearly separate what we’re aiming for from what we’re planning.

How can I increase my restaurant’s sales?

Many things affect sales: the menu, prices, location, marketing. Some of it, though, happens right on your floor and often goes unnoticed:

• At which hours are you not using your capacity fully?
• Which tables stay empty or uncleared for longer than they should?
• Is there a table inside that could be made ready while guests wait at the door?
• Where does service slow down at peak hours?

Mihman’s goal is to make the floor side of these questions visible: table occupancy, waiting tables and how long it takes for a freed-up table to be ready again. Rather than guessing its effect on your sales, we prefer to measure it together with you during the pilot.

How can I run my restaurant better?

On a busy evening, finding out what’s happening on the floor means either walking around constantly or asking your team. Neither is always possible.

Mihman aims to use your existing cameras to see which table is waiting to be greeted, to order or for the bill, and to alert the right person. You see the whole room on one screen, without having to ask anyone.

We also plan to offer an end-of-day or end-of-week summary of the room (busiest hours, average table turnover time and so on).

How can I use AI in my restaurant?

AI is no longer used only for writing text or customer service. AI models that understand images can tell from what a camera sees whether a table is occupied or free, and whether there are plates or a bill folder on it.

With Mihman, this happens on the device in the restaurant. Footage isn’t recorded, and it isn’t sent to the cloud or abroad. There’s no facial recognition; it looks at tables, not people.

How can I tell how long guests wait on my floor?

In most restaurants, the answer to this question starts with “roughly”. Unless a guest complains, the wait stays invisible.

Mihman’s approach is table-level: seeing how long a table has been waiting to be greeted or for the bill. Information such as table usage time, occupancy and peak hours also comes from the status of the tables. We don’t track individual guests’ movements around the room, and there are no staff scores.

How can I get more from my restaurant’s camera system?

The cameras in your restaurant don’t have to be used for security alone. In most dining rooms, they already see the tables.

Our aim is to use your existing setup without requiring any new camera investment. In the demo call we look at your floor plan together and check whether your cameras can see the tables. At a later stage we also plan to look at this information together with your POS data.

In short

Mihman is a floor assistant that aims to understand your restaurant’s dining room with AI. Its purpose in one sentence: no guest left waiting.

If you’d like to see how it would work on your floor, let’s set up a free demo. If you’re wondering who it’s for, take a look at our pages for busy restaurants, hotel restaurants and restaurant chains.