Charleston AI Playbook

Directory / Prompts / Restaurants & hospitality

Prep list from tonight’s covers

Updated

Problem it solves

Tomorrow’s prep is a guess when the covers are sitting on a ticket and the list is blank.

Best tool

  • ChatGPT (free chat)
  • Claude (free chat)
  • Gemini (free chat)
  • Copilot (free chat)

The free chat is enough for one draft. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and the free Microsoft Copilot chat can each do this. A paid plan only helps if you hit a usage limit. Copilot inside Word, Excel, or Outlook is a separate paid Microsoft 365 feature. You do not need it to try this once.

Copy-paste prompt

Draft tomorrow's prep list from tonight's numbers. Use only the items I say we prep. Do not invent a recipe or a par level I did not give.

Tonight's covers or item counts: [numbers]
Items we prep: [item and how you count it, for example quarts or portions]
Anything we ran out of: [list or none]
Day of week tomorrow: [day]

Replace every [bracket]. If you cannot fill one, delete that line.

Template

For: [tomorrow's date]
Covers or counts used: [numbers]
Item | Rule you use | Amount to prep
[item] | [your rule] | [amount]
86 or watch: [items]

Download saves a .txt file. prep-list.txt

Example output

A usable draft is a list of your items with amounts tied to the counts you gave. It should show the arithmetic in words you can check. It is not a recipe.

Tips

  • marketing/posts-week1-2.md tells restaurant owners to copy a prep-list prompt from the restaurants page. That prompt was not in the repo. This is that prompt.
  • If you do not know your portions per cover, do not let the draft invent them. Put your own rule in the item line.

Time saved

Estimate: the list is a few minutes if you know your portions. If you do not, the prompt will not discover them. The social draft did not measure this.

How to use it

  1. Copy the prompt. Copy the prompt on this page into a free chat.
  2. Fill every bracket. Replace each [bracket] with a fact from your own notes. If you cannot fill one, delete that line instead of guessing.
  3. Edit before you use it. Check the amount against your own rule. If the draft skipped the rule, do not cook from it.

Where this came from

  • Written for this library. The week 1–2 social draft pointed at a restaurants prep prompt that was not on the site.