Jeanine Ruffolo — co-owner of Lincoln Park brunch joint Jam ’n Honey, Beverly’s Franconello Italian Restaurant and Franco’s Ristorante, in Bridgeport — was having trouble juggling it all. To help her out, Grid tracked down an app that gives her eyes in all her businesses.
The problem: Try as she might, Ruffolo can’t be in multiple places at once. And with her three restaurants spread out from the Near North Side to the Far South, she can’t exactly pop in to monitor the goings-on.
The solution: EasyNet Touch (free on iOS and Android). The app connects with the security cameras in her restaurants, livestreaming the dining rooms straight to her phone. Ruffolo says she can decide when she needs to go into a restaurant based on how crowded it looks on the app’s stream. She also uses it to keep tabs on her employees.
The savings: Close to 14 hours a week. “I can start work two hours later if there’s nothing going on in the dining room,” she says. “I don’t have to be there exactly at the time we open.”
