Product Design · Systems Architecture · Hospitality Tech

Staff Portal & Systems

From guest-facing redesign to a custom-built staff management platform — the full story of rebuilding Ondus on the Waterfront from the ground up.

The situation

Taking over a restaurant that had everything to build.

I joined Ondus on the Waterfront as Restaurant Manager in March 2026. The bones were good — a beautiful waterfront location, a strong team, and an AC Hotels by Marriott flag. But the guest experience, brand consistency, and operational systems all needed work. This is the full story of what I fixed.

Guest-facing work

Menus, QR codes, and a website that actually worked.

The first priority was what guests could see and touch. I redesigned the full menu from scratch — build sheets, cost analysis, photography direction, and print layout. Updated QR codes across the restaurant. Rebuilt the Ondus website with accurate information, a prominent free validated parking callout, and a happy hour waterfront section. Within two weeks the property went from no TripAdvisor presence to a 5-star rating.

The website's menus were also badly out of date, and guests were complaining before they even walked in the door. I took over ongoing website maintenance, rebuilding the online menus to match what was actually being served — adding dietary indicators to every item and photographing the full menu myself so guests could see exactly what they were ordering.

Menu redesign — from a generic centered template to a cohesive coastal print system

Updated online menu — dietary indicators and original photography on every item

Staff & operations

Then I built the tools the team actually needed.

Once guest-facing work was stabilized, I turned to operations. Staff scheduling lived in group texts. Labor costs were calculated by hand. Shift pickups were verbal. Par levels tracked by memory. I designed and built a custom role-based staff management portal from scratch — deployed on AWS with Cognito authentication, DynamoDB, Lambda, and API Gateway. The portal covers scheduling, a live labor cost calculator, shift pickup board, AM/PM digital checklists, photo roster, and par panel.

Weekly scheduling view — role-based access, shift status, hours tracking, and floating par checklist

Shift pickup board — open shifts posted and claimed by staff in real time

Outcomes

What changed.

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I design systems that work in the real world — hospitality, product, operations, or wherever friction lives.

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