Refettorio Harlem
Food intake and guest check-in
Refettorio Harlem was our first project at Columbia Software Solutions. The chefs needed a better way to record the food coming into the kitchen. I worked with them to understand what information mattered, then built a WhatsApp bot that turns their messages into structured records in Google Sheets.
The bot uses Claude to extract details like the food source, weight, and estimated value into JSON. Before adding those records to the operational sheets, it sends staff a summary to confirm or cancel. That gives them a chance to check how their message was interpreted.
I also built a tablet interface for restaurant and pantry guest check-in. It saves pending entries locally and attempts to sync them when connectivity returns. Both parts feed the same spreadsheet, with separate tabs for different records.
I wrote the application code across the frontend and backend and returned to the kitchen multiple times to work with the chefs and test it on site. This brought together the reasons I wanted to start CSS: using my skills to help people and getting better through the work.
They also gave me a meal while I was there, and it was amazing.
