Gotti’s is an independent restaurant based in Houston, Texas, known for bold flavors, a strong local following, and a hands-on ownership approach to operations.

Like many successful independent restaurants, Gotti’s was built on passion, quality food, and long hours. But behind the scenes, managing food costs, vendor pricing, and purchasing decisions became increasingly complex as the business matured.

To continue operating profitably—and confidently—Gotti’s needed more than spreadsheets and instinct.

They needed real cost visibility.

Before NxtEdge, Gotti’s relied heavily on manual processes to manage food purchasing and costs. Vendor invoices were reviewed individually, spreadsheets were updated by hand, and there was no centralized system connecting purchasing, inventory, and accounting.

Irvin Williams, owner of Gotti’s, knew his restaurant was performing well—but he also knew that without accurate, real-time cost data, critical decisions were being made without full clarity.

Food costs—one of the largest expenses in the operation—were difficult to track consistently, and vendor price changes often went unnoticed until after margins were impacted.

“I felt like I was totally unaware of my costs,” Irvin explains.
“To run a successful business without knowing your costs, you’re basically operating in the dark.”

Irvin had previously tried another inventory and costing solution for several months, but despite the effort, nothing meaningfully changed. The system failed to deliver visibility, and the lack of hands-on support made adoption difficult.

That’s when Irvin began looking for a different kind of solution—and a true partner.

Irvin first discovered NxtEdge because of one feature that immediately stood out: Vendor Price Comparison.

At the time, he wasn’t aware of any other platform that allowed him to clearly see vendor pricing side by side in one system—without spreadsheets or manual work.

“When I came to NxtEdge, it was because you guys had Vendor Price Comparison. There was no other tool I knew of that did that.”

But what ultimately convinced Irvin to move forward wasn’t just functionality—it was the onboarding experience and level of support.

From the beginning, the NxtEdge team took a hands-on, white-glove approach, guiding Gotti’s through setup, configuration, and adoption instead of leaving the team to figure things out alone.

“You guys didn’t just take our money and leave everything for us to set up,” Irvin says.
“My onboarding process was extremely phenomenal. I knew exactly who my onboarding person was, and they held my hand through the entire process.”

Gotti’s adopted NxtEdge as a full back-office platform, consolidating multiple workflows into one centralized system.

Today, Irvin and his team use NxtEdge for:

• Vendor price comparison to identify cost savings opportunities

• Ordering and invoice receiving to streamline purchasing

• Invoice automation to reduce manual data entry

• Food & beverage inventory management for cost tracking

• Accounting integration for cleaner, faster financial workflows

• POS and menu costing to understand true item-level profitability

“Basically, the full solution,” Irvin says.

This centralized approach replaced years of spreadsheet dependency and disconnected systems, giving Gotti’s a single source of truth for food costs and purchasing.

One of the biggest shifts for Gotti’s was moving away from repetitive manual work and toward automated processes connected directly to vendors.

Instead of manually entering invoices, reconciling numbers, and updating spreadsheets, NxtEdge now automatically processes vendor data and keeps costs up to date in real time.

“It saved me a lot of repetitive hours doing these tasks,” Irvin explains.
“Now the computer takes over and automatically updates everything because it’s connected directly with all my vendors.”

With food being one of the two largest expenses in the restaurant—alongside labor—this visibility has fundamentally changed how Irvin approaches purchasing and planning.

“It helped me get away from the spreadsheets I’ve been tied down to for years,” he adds.

Even while continuing to expand inventory costing usage, Gotti’s has already seen tangible benefits from NxtEdge—especially in ordering and vendor management.

Vendor price comparison has allowed Irvin to clearly see pricing differences, understand purchasing patterns, and identify savings opportunities that were previously hidden.

“It’s definitely allowed me to see actual cost savings in my ordering,” Irvin says.
“I can see the cross-benefit of the tool.”

Beyond cost savings, the time recovered from automation has allowed Irvin to focus more on running the restaurant instead of managing spreadsheets and paperwork.

Location: Boynton Beach, FL
Client: Ventura Health and Rehabilitation Center
Focus: Invoice Automation, Food & Beverage Inventory, Department Transfers, Recipe Management, POS Integration

Ventura Health Services is a leading healthcare organization operating more than fifteen facilities across multiple care categories, including nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, mental health facilities, and drug treatment programs. With a mission centered on improving patient outcomes and maintaining compassionate, consistent care, Ventura Health places a strong emphasis on operational excellence behind the scenes, particularly within its food service operations.

As the organization grew, it faced mounting challenges in managing food costs across numerous locations, each with different suppliers, menu requirements, and patient dietary needs. The leadership team recognized that ensuring quality and nutrition consistency while maintaining budget control required more than manual oversight. They needed visibility into vendor pricing, tighter purchasing controls, and streamlined invoice management, all without compromising the standard of care patients depend on.

Ventura Health needed a way to:

• Compare vendor pricing across multiple distributors
• Enforce strict per-patient food budgets
• Standardize products and menus across all facilities
• Streamline invoice management and accounting
• The organization’s leadership, spearheaded by Nahal Patel, Senior VP of Nutritional Services, began searching for a technology partner who could deliver these capabilities.

Ventura Health discovered NxtEdge while researching solutions to streamline purchasing and control food costs across its facilities. Impressed by NxtEdge’s experience in healthcare and hospitality operations, the organization partnered with Naomi Canning and her team to design a customized, step-by-step implementation plan.

The rollout was completed in three phases, activating five facilities at a time to ensure smooth adoption, hands-on training, and consistent performance tracking. By the end of the process, all Ventura Health locations were fully live on NxtEdge, operating under one unified system that connected purchasing, accounting, and vendor management with real-time visibility and control.

Location: Marblehead, MA
Client: Tedesco Country Club
Focus: Invoice Automation, Food & Beverage Inventory, Department Transfers, Recipe Management, POS Integration

Led by General Manager Mike McGillicuddy, CCM, PGA, and Food & Beverage Director Juan D. Cespedes, the project had strong support from the top down.

Executive Chef James Malmgren and Bar Manager Robert Fini were hands-on throughout implementation, showing up for every session, completing tasks, and engaging in each step of the process.

Phase 1: Invoice Automation & Inventory Management

The team began with invoice automation, bringing structure and speed to vendor invoice processing. Prices updated automatically, inventory items synced in real time, and the club eliminated manual entry headaches.

Next came food and beverage inventory setup — building out product lists, establishing count sheets, and ensuring inventory data was accurate and accessible across departments.

Phase 2: Transfers & Requisitions

Once core inventory was in place, the team moved on to interdepartmental transfers and requisitions. This allowed the club to track inventory movement across kitchens, bars, and storage areas — a critical step in gaining full visibility and control over on-site stock.

• Consistent weekly engagement from key department heads
• Strong leadership from the GM and F&B Director
• Clear project goals and accountability
• Smooth transitions between implementation modules

Looking Ahead: Recipes & POS Integration with Jonas

The next phase is already underway.

Recipes are being built for all menu items, with integration to the Jonas POS system.

This will enable automated recipe depletion, accurate costing, and real-time variance reporting — closing the loop between sales and inventory.

Tedesco Country Club understood that successful country club inventory management isn’t about software alone — it’s about people, process, and planning.

By assigning the right team and staying committed at every step, they’ve created a scalable foundation that will support smarter operations and stronger financial control for years to come.

Frustrated, Jim searched online for an answer.

That’s when he found NxtEdge, the only platform combining AI invoice automation, vendor price comparison, and real-world foodservice logic.

He made one call—and within hours, he was onboarded and operational.

“I was on a mission to find a way to shop vendor pricing. I found NxtEdge online and was up and running in an hour.”
— Jim Ammirati, Owner, Noble House

In just a few days, NxtEdge mapped his entire vendor catalog, normalized pack sizes, and delivered a side-by-side comparison of every item he was buying.

Armed with clean, real-time data, Jim sat down with each of his vendors—and watched the impact unfold.

Every single vendor dropped their pricing once they saw the data. No arguments. No delays. Just results.

“NxtEdge gave me instant clarity. The vendors knew I had the numbers, and they responded immediately. I wish I had found this a year ago.”
— Jim Ammirati, Owner, Noble House

What started as a search for visibility quickly became a strategic tool for cost control—and a game-changer for Jim’s bottom line.

Kaluz is a premier hospitality brand operating three upscale Kaluz locations plus the iconic Max’s Grille in South Florida.

Known for stunning waterfront views, elevated American cuisine, and a strong focus on guest experience, Kaluz has built its reputation on operational excellence—and smart systems behind the scenes.

A key part of their success?

Strong, scalable restaurant inventory management that kept pace as they expanded.

Seven years ago, Kaluz was operating a single flagship location on the Fort Lauderdale Intracoastal.
At the time, Shannon, their Director of Operations, recognized that running profitable, consistent operations would require more than passion—it would require tight inventory control.

Manual invoice entry, scattered spreadsheets, and no direct integration between purchasing, sales, and accounting made managing food and beverage costs challenging.

Shannon reconnected with Naomi—an industry partner from Kaluz’s early days when they launched with Aloha POS 12 years ago.

Now, Naomi was helping grow NxtEdge (formerly DiningEdge Technology), and Shannon saw an opportunity to put a real system in place.

Starting with their Fort Lauderdale location, Shannon and her team adopted NxtEdge’s modular restaurant inventory management platform, implementing:

Weekly bar inventory counts for tighter beverage control
Bi-monthly food inventory counts to protect margins
Full invoice automation to eliminate manual entry errors
QuickBooks integration to streamline accounting
Aloha POS integration for real-time recipe depletion and cost tracking

As Kaluz expanded to additional locations—including a second and third Kaluz—and most recently acquired Max’s Grille in Boca Raton, they continued to grow with NxtEdge.

In fact, Shannon was thrilled to find that Max’s Grille was already using NxtEdge when they took ownership, making the integration even easier.

Today, across three Kaluz restaurants and Max’s Grille, Shannon and her team rely on centralized food and beverage inventory management to maintain consistency and control.

Three years ago, Kaluz moved from manual uploads to NxtEdge’s OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology for invoice automation.

Instead of keying in invoices by hand, vendor documents are scanned and automatically processed by AI—cutting administrative time dramatically and reducing human error.

Every invoice flows seamlessly:

• Into NxtEdge for real-time inventory and purchasing control
• Into QuickBooks for faster accounting
• Into Aloha POS for live inventory depletion linked to sales

This shift unlocked massive efficiency gains across all four locations, giving Shannon’s team more time to focus on operations and guest service.

Thanks to their investment in restaurant inventory management, Kaluz Restaurant Group has achieved:

• 8–10% tighter control on food and beverage costs
• Faster inventory counts — weekly bar counts now completed in under 90 minutes
• Vendor price transparency — early detection of price fluctuations
• Streamlined accounting and ordering across all locations
• Reduced waste, better portion control, and stronger margins

“Honestly, I don’t know how we would run our business without NxtEdge,” says Shannon.

Their ability to maintain operational discipline while expanding to four high-volume restaurants shows the power of starting early with the right inventory systems.

Kaluz’s journey proves what many growing hospitality groups learn the hard way:
Without strong food and beverage inventory control, scaling only magnifies problems.

But with systems like NxtEdge in place, operators can:

Protect profitability at every location
Improve purchasing accuracy
Reduce food and liquor waste
Catch vendor pricing issues early
Connect accounting, POS, and inventory systems seamlessly
Make smarter, faster business decisions