When Little Alley Steak co-owner Hicham Azhari complained about the difficulties of ordering ingredients for the restaurant, Hugo Posh LLC executives had an idea.
They had the technical expertise to create procurement software to streamline that process, and Azhari had the restaurant experience to guide their product development.
Hugo Posh LLC, a Sandy Springs holding company, spent about a year piloting its new procurement software startup SkilletWorks at Little Alley Steak in Roswell and Buckhead. Now the startup is getting customers nationwide.
SkilletWorks allows food service workers to scan product barcodes with their phones to order more food or beverage from their suppliers. About 500 locations nationwide now use the software since it launched at the beginning of the year, SkilletWorks CEO Scott Rosenblum said.
He credits much of that growth to relationships with local restaurants, including Concentric Restaurants, TWO urban licks, Osteria Mattone and South Main Kitchen. National restaurant chains Twin Peaks and Blue Martini are now also using the software.
“With these big restaurant groups, we were able to get a lot of audiences,” Rosenblum said. “It lowered the barriers of entry.”
SkilletWorks is part of a wave of technology solutions for the restaurant industry. Restaurants were forced to innovate because of pandemic safety protocols. In the past year and a half, they more widely integrated with online delivery services and reservation software, adopted contactless payment solutions and digital menus via QR codes.
This back-end procurement software is another example of technology permeating through an industry that Rosenblum calls “very mom and pop.”
SkilletWorks aimed to be a time-saver for restaurant employees. That time may be particularly valuable for restaurants that are short-staffed, a nationwide problem for the industry as businesses return to normal operations after the pandemic.
Because of increasing interest from restaurants, SkilletWorks ramped up its own hiring during the pandemic. The company now has 30 employees and more features in development.
The company is expanding the software to include inventory data. By the fourth quarter, SkilletWorks plans to release a national catalog of all food and beverage distributors nationwide, meaning restaurants can input what they need and a list of possible suppliers will appear.
