Tandem Uses AI to Transform Restaurant Operations

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 22, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- Andrew Schwartz and Bhavik Patel, the co-founders of xtraCHEF, are teaming up again to launch Tandem, an AI company focused on transforming how restaurants operate. The pair previously built restaurant technology company xtraCHEF, which was acquired by Toast. After spending years working alongside thousands of restaurant operators, the duo is now returning to restaurant technology with a new thesis: AI creates an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how technology supports restaurant operators and their teams.

Restaurants today operate across an increasingly fragmented technology ecosystem, spanning point-of-sale, labor, accounting, inventory, purchasing, reservations, delivery, marketing, and more. While these systems have digitized much of the restaurant, operators and their teams still spend significant time manually moving information between platforms, analyzing data, identifying issues, and completing repetitive administrative tasks.

Tandem is being built to change that. Rather than adding another dashboard or standalone application for restaurant teams to manage, Tandem is building AI agents designed to work across the systems restaurants already use. These agents can help operators analyze information, identify what requires attention, automate repetitive workflows, and take action across the business. Tandem will also act as a multiplayer workspace for human employees to communicate with their AI co-workers.

As Co-Founder and CPO/CTO, Bhavik Patel leads Tandem's technology, AI, and engineering strategy. Patel previously served as CTO and Co-Founder of xtraCHEF, where he helped build the technology platform that ultimately became part of Toast following the company's acquisition.

Joining Schwartz and Patel as a Founding Partner is Michael Schulson, one of the country's most accomplished chefs and restaurateurs and founder of Schulson Collective. Schulson brings decades of hands-on experience building and operating successful restaurant concepts and will work closely with Tandem on product strategy, operator needs, and the real-world application of AI inside restaurants.

Together, Schwartz, Patel, and Schulson bring a combination of restaurant technology, product development, AI expertise, and hands-on restaurant operating experience to Tandem. The company sees applications for AI across nearly every part of restaurant operations, from finance and accounting to labor, purchasing, inventory, marketing, guest engagement, and day-to-day operational management. Tandem's strategy is to introduce agents around specific, high-value workflows and increasingly connect those capabilities across the restaurant organization.

Tandem is also developing integrations across the restaurant technology ecosystem, allowing its agents to work with the systems operators already rely on rather than requiring restaurants to replace their existing technology stack. The company will use its seed capital to expand its engineering and product teams, deepen these integrations, and accelerate deployments with restaurant groups.