ShiftTrained Launches AI-Powered Menu Training Platform Built by 30-Year Restaurant Industry Veteran

ShiftTrained is Now Live!

Chicago-based startup uses AI to read restaurant menus and generate hundreds of custom training quiz questions in minutes

Pre-shifts are announcement reading, not training. Quizzes prove what's in someone's head before they hit a table.”

— Terry Psaltakis, Founder of ShiftTrained

CHICAGO, IL, UNITED STATES, April 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICAGO, April 28, 2026 — ShiftTrained, an AI-powered staff training platform purpose-built for restaurants, today announced its public launch. The platform allows restaurant operators to upload a menu - PDF or phone photo of the printed copy - and receive a complete training quiz — covering ingredients, allergens, prices, and preparation methods — in roughly ten minutes.

Founded by a 30-year restaurant industry veteran with experience opening more than 20 concepts, ShiftTrained addresses a problem operators have lived with for decades: pre-shift meetings don't actually teach staff the menu. Information delivered passively, in a noisy back-of-house, ninety minutes before service, rarely makes it to the table. Reviews on Yelp and Google reflect the cost — guests routinely complain that servers can't describe specials, identify allergens, or recommend a wine pairing.

"After thirty years of running pre-shifts in restaurants across multiple markets, the failure mode is always the same. A guest asks about the risotto and the answer is 'it's like rice, only more fancy,'" said Terry Psaltakis, founder of ShiftTrained. "Pre-shifts are announcement reading, not training. Quizzes do something pre-shifts can't — they put each person on the spot, prove what's actually in someone's head, and create a baseline for who needs more coaching before they hit a table."

How it works

A restaurant operator uploads a menu (PDF or phone photo) — drink list, dinner menu, brunch specials, or any other document. ShiftTrained's AI parses every item, ingredient, price, and allergen, then generates 100 to 400 training quiz questions tailored to that specific menu. Staff take the quiz on their phones in five to ten minutes. Managers see scores by employee, category, and individual question, plus a live leaderboard that drives competitive engagement among staff.

The platform launches with three pricing tiers, each with a free trial and no credit card required to start:

Basic — $29/month — One menu, two quizzes, fifteen employees. Designed for single-concept independent restaurants.

Pro — $49/month — Five menus, unlimited quizzes, forty employees. Includes AI-generated personalized study guides and analytics.

Max — $99/month — Unlimited menus, ninety-nine employees, up to three locations, and cross-location reporting.

Custom Enterprise plans are available for larger restaurant groups, hotel chains, and hospitality companies.

Built for the operator's reality

ShiftTrained is mobile-first by design — the quiz-taker experience is optimized for the cheapest Android phone on restaurant Wi-Fi, not for office laptops. The platform was tested for months at Fat Tommy's Grill & Sports Bar in Chicago, where staff served as the first quiz audience while founder Terry Psaltakis tuned the AI's question quality.

The platform's roadmap includes back-of-house kitchen training (recipe cards and food safety procedures), POS integration with Toast and other major systems, and Spanish-language quiz support to address the kitchen workforce.

About ShiftTrained

ShiftTrained is an AI-powered staff training platform built for restaurants by a 30-year industry operator. The platform turns any menu into a custom training quiz in ten minutes, helping front-of-house teams describe specials, identify allergens, and recommend pairings with confidence. ShiftTrained is headquartered in Chicago and operated by TechWithTerry LLC. Learn more at shifttrained.com or contact hello@shifttrained.com.

About the founder

Terry Psaltakis has spent more than thirty years in the restaurant industry, in every role from dishwasher to operator, across more than twenty concepts in multiple markets. ShiftTrained is his answer to a problem he's lived with his entire career: information delivered in a pre-shift meeting doesn't make it to the table.

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Terry Psaltakis
Tech With Terry, LLC
hello@shifttrained.com
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