Craftable CEO David Cantu recently joined the Restaurant AI Podcast to discuss restaurant profitability, back office operations, AI, and what separates high-performing operators from everyone else.
Listen to the full episode here.
For years, restaurant operators have been trained to focus on three numbers:
They're important. But according to Craftable CEO David Cantu, they aren't the whole story.
In a recent conversation on the Restaurant AI Podcast, David shared lessons from his time as a restaurant operator, co-founding HotSchedules, leading Black Box Intelligence, and now guiding Craftable's vision for the future of restaurant operations.
The conversation explored a simple but powerful idea:
The restaurant industry isn't suffering from a lack of data. It's suffering from a lack of visibility into what actions actually improve profitability.
Many operators review financial performance at the end of the week or month. By the time they discover a problem, the opportunity to fix it has often passed.
David argues that profitability isn't won through a single major initiative. It's built through hundreds of small operational decisions made every day.
Questions like:
The challenge isn't collecting the data. Most operators already have plenty of reports.
The challenge is turning that information into action.
"Operators don't need more reports. They need help understanding where to focus."
One of the strongest themes from the discussion was the difference between simply tracking food cost and truly understanding inventory performance.
Many restaurants count inventory weekly or monthly and use those counts to calculate food cost.
But the real opportunity comes from understanding the gap between:
That variance often reveals the root causes of profit leakage:
When operators can identify those issues quickly, they gain control over profitability before losses compound.
One surprising takeaway from the conversation was David's view that technology adoption is rarely a technology problem.
Instead, it's a leadership and operationalization problem.
Restaurants often purchase new software expecting the tool itself to create change.
The reality is that successful implementation requires:
David compared it to a gym membership.
Buying the membership doesn't improve fitness.
Using it consistently does.
The same principle applies to inventory systems, forecasting tools, AP automation platforms, and AI.
The most successful operators create alignment around why the process matters before asking teams to change behavior.
Artificial Intelligence was another major topic.
While many AI discussions focus on automation, David sees the larger opportunity differently.
Restaurants don't need AI to create more information.
They need AI to help surface the most important opportunities hidden inside existing data.
Instead of forcing managers to:
AI can identify:
And then explain why they matter.
The goal isn't replacing operators.
The goal is helping operators spend less time searching for problems and more time solving them.
The discussion also explored what many long-lasting restaurant brands have in common.
According to David, successful operators often resist unnecessary complexity.
They understand:
Rather than chasing every trend, they focus on executing consistently.
Technology should support that discipline, not complicate it.
The best systems help teams make better decisions faster while remaining easy enough for operators to adopt across every location.
As labor shortages, margin pressure, and operational complexity continue to challenge the industry, David believes the future of restaurant technology lies in intelligent decision support.
Not more dashboards.
Not more reports.
Not more disconnected systems.
Instead, operators need solutions that connect purchasing, inventory, invoices, analytics, forecasting, and AI into a single operational workflow.
Because ultimately, profitability isn't created in a report.
It's created through the daily decisions operators make across every restaurant, every shift, and every transaction.
Want to hear the complete discussion on restaurant profitability, inventory management, AI, leadership, and the future of hospitality technology?
Listen to David Cantu on the Restaurant AI Podcast here.