AI Assistant Setup: Run Your Restaurant Setup Inside ChatGPT or Claude

RestaurantManage runs a public MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which means an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Claude can do your restaurant setup for you while you type in plain language. You say "here's a photo of my menu, set up my restaurant" and the assistant creates the categories, the dishes, the prices, the tables and the QR links — no forms, no dashboard tour, no training.

This page explains what the assistant can and cannot do, how to connect it in about two minutes, and what to say to it. You do not install anything: the connection is a single URL plus a sign-in.

What Is the RestaurantManage AI Assistant?

It is not a chatbot inside our panel. It is your own AI assistant — the ChatGPT or Claude account you already use — given controlled permission to work on your restaurant. RestaurantManage publishes a set of tools at https://api.restaurantmanage.com/mcp; your assistant discovers those tools, asks you to sign in once, and from then on can carry out setup and menu work on your behalf.

Because it is standard MCP, it is not limited to one vendor. Claude, ChatGPT and any other MCP-capable client connect the same way, with the same permissions and the same limits.

What Can the Assistant Do?

Fourteen tools are available, and they fall into two groups: initial setup, and day-to-day menu management.

Setting up a new restaurant

• Import a menu from a photo or a typed list. Send a photograph of your printed menu, or simply type the dishes and prices into the chat. Categories, dishes, sizes and prices are created in one go, translations into 8 languages are generated automatically, and each dish gets an image.
• Set the country and basic settings. Country, currency, menu language and menu theme. The country matters most — it drives taxes and receipt format, and it is hard to change later, so the assistant confirms it with you before the first import.
• Name the restaurant. Restaurant name and slogan.
• Create table locations and tables. "Add a terrace with 8 tables" creates the location and numbers the tables automatically. Hotel rooms work the same way.
• Hand back the QR links. The QR ordering link for every table, the general restaurant menu link, and the panel address where everything else lives.
• Send the printable QR cards. The assistant returns a direct download link for the A4 PDF of QR cards — six cards per page, ready to cut and place on tables. The link works without signing in and is valid for seven days.
• Report progress. After a menu import, translations and dish images are produced in the background; the assistant can check and tell you when they are finished.

Running the menu day to day

• List the menu. Categories, dishes, sizes and current prices — in your menu's own language.
• Update prices. One dish or many at once: "raise all pizza prices by 10%" is a single instruction.
• Mark items available or out of stock. "The salmon is finished for today" hides it from the QR menu instantly.
• Add a new dish. Name, description, price and category — the image and translations are generated as usual.
• Remove a dish. The only deletion the assistant can perform. It repeats the exact dish name back to you and waits for your confirmation first.

What Can the Assistant NOT Do?

The permission surface is deliberately narrow. These are not policies the assistant is asked to respect — the tools simply do not exist, so no prompt can talk it into them.

• Orders and revenue. It cannot see, create, change or cancel a single order, and it cannot read your reports or turnover.
• Staff and accounts. It cannot add employees, change roles or reset passwords.
• Payments. It cannot take a payment, open the cash drawer or touch your subscription.
• Customer data. It cannot read your phone book, customer addresses or call records.
• Phone and printers. Caller ID and printer configuration stay in the panel.
• Deleting anything except a menu item. Your restaurant, your tables, your locations and your data cannot be deleted by an assistant — only by you, in the panel.

Everything on that list is done by you in the web panel, and the assistant will point you there when you ask for it.

How Do I Connect Claude?

1. Open Claude → Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
2. Paste the server URL: https://api.restaurantmanage.com/mcp
3. Press Connect. A RestaurantManage sign-in page opens.
4. Sign in with Google or with your e-mail and password. If you do not have an account yet, you can create one on that same page — restaurant name, country, and the agreement checkbox, nothing more.
5. Read the permission card and press Allow. You are done; ask Claude "show my restaurant's setup status" to confirm.

How Do I Connect ChatGPT?

1. Open ChatGPT → Settings → Apps (Plugins) and enable Developer mode.
2. Choose Create app and paste the same URL: https://api.restaurantmanage.com/mcp
3. Sign in with RestaurantManage and press Allow, exactly as above.

No pre-registration or API key is needed on either side. RestaurantManage supports Dynamic Client Registration, so the assistant registers itself and discovers everything it needs from the server.

What Should I Say to It?

Speak normally. These all work as first messages:

• "Set up my restaurant — here's a photo of my menu."
• "Create a QR menu for my cafe. We're in Greece, prices in euros, menu in Greek."
• "Add a location called Terrace with 8 tables and give me the QR links."
• "Show my restaurant's setup status."
• "Raise all pizza prices by 10%."
• "Mark the salmon out of stock."
• "Add a new dessert: Tiramisu, 120, in the Desserts category."
• "Download my QR cards as a PDF."

If you send a menu photograph, the assistant reads it itself and builds the import from what it sees, so a phone snapshot of a printed menu is enough to get started.

How Do Sign-in and Permissions Work?

The connection uses OAuth 2.1 with PKCE — the same standard your bank's app uses to let a third party act on your behalf without ever seeing your password. The assistant never receives your password, and the access it gets is scoped to setup and menu management for your restaurant only.

On the permission page you see two lists before you decide: what the assistant will be able to do, and what it will never be able to do. Nothing happens until you press Allow.

The link is between one assistant and one restaurant. It cannot reach any other restaurant on the platform, and other people's assistants cannot reach yours.

Is It Safe?

The honest answer is that safety here comes from what was left out, not from good intentions. An AI assistant can be talked into things by a cleverly worded message; a tool that does not exist cannot be called no matter what anyone types. That is why orders, payments, staff and customer data are not part of the surface at all.

Three further limits apply:

• Confirmation before deletion. The single destructive tool — removing a menu item — repeats the exact dish name back to you and waits.
• Daily limits. Write operations are capped per restaurant per day, so a runaway loop cannot rewrite your whole menu.
• Instant revocation. Remove the connector in your assistant, or ask us to revoke it, and access stops immediately — not at the end of a session.

What Does It Cost?

Nothing extra. The MCP server is included, and the QR menu it sets up is free forever. You need a RestaurantManage account and an AI assistant you already pay for (or use free) — that is the whole list.

Troubleshooting

The assistant says it cannot find the server

Check the URL character by character: https://api.restaurantmanage.com/mcp — no trailing slash, no /api in front. If your client asks for a "server URL" and a separate "authorization URL", supply only the server URL; the rest is discovered automatically.

It asks me to sign in every time

That usually means the connector was added twice, or the browser blocked the sign-in pop-up. Remove the connector, add it once more, and complete the sign-in in a normal browser window.

It says it has no restaurant

You signed in with an account that has no restaurant attached. Sign in with the account you use for the panel, or create the restaurant on the sign-in page.

The menu import finished but the images are still missing

Images and translations are produced in the background after the dishes are created. Ask the assistant to check the progress; on a large menu it can take a few minutes.

It refuses to do something I asked

If the request touches orders, staff, payments, the phone system or printers, the refusal is correct — those tools do not exist. Open the panel; everything is there.

Where to Go Next

• First steps: Getting Started with RestaurantManage
• QR menu: QR Menu Setup and Table Codes
• Admin panel: Admin Dashboard Guide
• Background: Set Up a Restaurant with ChatGPT: The Complete Guide