A profit engine for owner-operated restaurants & cafés
Your restaurant's profit engine.
malai brings your POS, invoices, menu and customer reviews together — and turns them into clear, actionable profit moves, delivered by text.
malai
Monday · 8:04 AM
The profit hiding in plain sight
malai finds the profit opportunities already in your data — and sends you clear, actionable moves. No dashboards to check. Just results.
Find hidden food, labor and supplier costs eating into your profit.
Catch overcharges, reduce waste and get better pricing from suppliers.
Spot what to promote, adjust and bundle to increase revenue per guest.
Built for real restaurants
You already have the data. malai turns it into straightforward recommendations so you can run a healthier, more profitable business — without adding to your plate.
The 60-second version
The whole idea, in one story — starring every owner we've ever met.
Proof, before promises
A real audit, anonymized. Every line names the dish, the move, and the dollars — from your own numbers, not industry averages.
Tighten lunch buffet pars & portioningFood cost running 50% vs 33% healthy target. Reversible in one week.
+$8,212/moRaise the Lunch Combo $1The bundle underprices its own parts — every curry costs more à la carte.
+$159/moSuggest garlic naan over plainSame volume, +$0.84 gross profit per swap. Staff script included.
+$108/moDeterministic math on your POS + invoices. AI explains — it never invents a number. Every text comes with a "math" button because you should check our work.
Why not the usual options
Your POS knows what sold. It can't see your invoices, so it can't know your margin. malai marries both and tells you what to do.
Built for operators who want to be analysts. You're running a restaurant. Your phone is the interface. Nothing to learn, ever.
They tell you what already happened, months later. malai texts the move while it's still worth making — at a fraction of the cost.
"Every owner I know can quote yesterday's sales to the dollar. Almost none can quote yesterday's profit. malai exists to close that gap — one text at a time."
malai founder · based in Saratoga, CA — built by operators, fluent in Indian, Mexican, Thai, pizza, cafe & donut economics.
The Data Pledge
You share the same two things you'd hand an accountant: a sales export and recent supplier invoices. Here's exactly how they're treated — in writing, signed, one page.
Used solely to analyze your restaurant. Never shared, never resold, never used to train a model.
Customer and employee details are deleted at ingest. We keep items, quantities, prices, dates — nothing personal.
Encrypted, US-based storage. One restaurant's numbers never touch another's.
You export the files yourself, so you know exactly what malai receives. No hidden pipes into your systems.
The Found Money Guarantee
$0
A full profit audit on your real numbers — like the sample above, with your dishes on it. Yours to keep either way.
$0
Weekly profit moves by text. Each names the dish, the dollars, and the confidence level. You test what you like.
from $65/mo
Weekly moves, drift alerts when suppliers raise prices, and a monthly ledger of everything found and kept. Priced by your size — see below.
Same malai intelligence across every plan. Pricing scales with business size, data volume, and operating complexity. Sized by your trailing 3-month sales — confirmed from the same POS export we analyze, so there's nothing to negotiate. If you grow into a new tier, we'll congratulate you first and change the price next cycle, never retroactively.
Your free audit will surface at least three times your monthly fee in profit opportunities. If it doesn't, your first paid month is free. Every tier, same promise. No contract — cancel anytime, by text.
Questions owners ask
Two things: export a sales report from your POS (Toast, Square, Clover — any of them) and share recent supplier invoices, photos are fine. That's the whole job. malai does the analysis and texts you the moves.
At least the last 30 days; 60 days gives a sharper audit. More history means better detection of drift, seasonality, and what's quietly declining.
Only malai, only to analyze your restaurant. Never shared, never resold, never used to train AI models. Customer and employee details are stripped on arrival. Text DELETE at any time and everything is erased within 7 days.
The audit and your first month are free. After that, plans start at $65/month, sized by your sales volume — and the audit must surface at least 3× your monthly fee in profit opportunities, or your first paid month is free.
Text us "cancel." No contract, no phone tree, no retention offer. Your data is deleted on request, confirmed in writing.
One text. That's the signup.
Text malai and a real person — not a bot farm — replies with two questions and gets to work. First move in your hands inside a week.
Text malai to (669) 361-1140