If Eaco Can Win Over a Head Chef … It Can Win Over Anyone

Oscar Ops
5 days ago
3 min read

There are certain moments in building a company where you look at your phone, see a message come through, and think: Wow… we’ve actually done it.

This morning was one of those moments.

That’s Bryden Buckingham, the Head Chef across Great Western Enterprises, declaring that Eaco is “seriously ground breaking stuff.” And if you know Bryden, you know this isn’t a bloke who hands out praise like it's parsley on a Parma.

This is a man who lives in the heat of a commercial kitchen. Someone who’d always choose organic, locally grown produce over anything involving a screen. A guy who would rather butcher a whole side of beef than click through a dashboard. That’s the world he thrives in. That’s where he’s the master.

And yet… there he is, in the group chat, telling everyone he just searched for something in Eaco and—“it’s all just ✨ there ✨.”That’s when you know you’ve cracked something real.

The Great Western Test: The Hardest Audience You’ll Ever Win

Between Seppelt Winery, Salingers Café, and the Great Western Hotel (soon to be joined by the newly acquired Leopoldo Hotel), Great Western Enterprises runs three (soon four) very different venues.

Across them? Around 50 staff rostered and scheduled every week through Eaco.

And in the past 12 months?They’ve tracked over 800 events through the system:

Four venues. Fifty humans. Eight hundred events. One platform keeping the whole circus in sync.

And now even the Head Chef (the one person in hospitality who is traditionally least interested in workflow systems) has crossed over.

Kirsty summed it up perfectly in the chat:

“We have another convert.”

Bryden’s reply?

“6 months but we got there in the end.”

I nearly choked on my coffee. Six months! You’ve gotta respect the honesty. But here’s the deeper truth:

If Eaco can win over a chef … It can win over anyone.

The Real Meaning Behind This Moment

Hospitality is chaos wrapped in charm. You’ve got bookings coming in, staff swapping shifts, suppliers arriving late, last-minute menu changes, surprise dietary needs, marquees going up, marquees coming down again, and someone always—always—forgetting the bloody run sheet.

For a Head Chef, every interruption is a catastrophe waiting to happen. If a system gets in the way, they’ll bin it. No hesitation.

So when someone like Bryden (who would normally rather be elbow-deep in mise en place) starts saying:

“I just looked it all up on my phone.”

…that’s not a small win.That’s a cultural shift.That’s technology finally getting out of the way and actually helping.

Why This Matters for Eaco

Because chefs are like canaries in the operational coal mine.They don't care about features.They don't care about sales slides.They don't care about fancy websites.

They care about:Does this make my life easier in the next 30 seconds?

If the answer is no, you’ll know immediately.

If the answer is yes… you’ll get something like this screenshot—a glowing endorsement from one of the toughest operators in the business.

And that’s why this moment hits different.

It means Eaco isn't just software. It’s starting to become habit. Muscle memory. Part of the rhythm of everyday work.

That’s when you know you're onto something.

Final Thought

For anyone out there wondering whether your team will actually adopt Eaco… whether your operators will use it… whether your staff will switch over…

Just remember:If we can win over Bryden, the man who’d rather be inspecting a ribeye than a roster, we can win over anyone.

And that’s what makes this journey so exciting.

Free Trial

If a hard-nosed head chef can make the switch, imagine what Eaco can do for your crew. See a demo and secure your Free Trial of Eaco today: https://www.eaco.me/requestademo