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.