Power BI for Restaurants: Is It the Right Choice for Your Business?

The consideration of Power BI for restaurants has grown significantly in recent years. Since the pandemic, restaurant operators have been looking for real-time insights to manage their ever-tightening margins. Many turn to business intelligence (BI) tools like Power BI, Tableau, or Looker, inspired by how larger enterprises have leveraged data to optimise performance for decades.

But is Power BI the right fit for your restaurant business? This article will explore what restaurant operators need from BI tools and whether Power BI is actually the best solution for you.

Why Restaurants Consider Power BI

Operators often look to Power BI for restaurants when manual reporting becomes too time-consuming and complex. If teams are spending more time compiling reports than acting on insights, you know the balance is wrong.

Many restaurant teams, especially operations, crave real-time insights, but data handling is often centralised in finance teams with different priorities. Think reconciliation rather than operational insight. A real-time dashboard bridges this gap, allowing both departments to access relevant data instantly.

Modern restaurant operators want to see sales trends, labour costs, and transaction volume fluctuations in the moment rather than waiting for end-of-week or end-of-month reports. For example, if labour costs are too high during lunch, immediate action can be taken rather than discovering the issue at the end of the week when it’s too late to adjust.

Additionally, restaurants operate multiple systems, making data integration essential. Comparing data from POS systems, inventory management, labour tools, and customer reviews can uncover inefficiencies. It’s no use having great COGS if customer ratings are decreasing because they feel short-changed. A BI tool should bring all this data together effortlessly to generate insight.

Is Power BI a Good Fit for Your Restaurant?

Power BI for restaurants can be beneficial, but it’s not the best fit for every business. Here are key factors to consider before implementing Power BI:

Power BI is a good fit if your restaurant has:

• A dedicated tech team: If you have in-house data engineers or software developers, they can manage API connections and data warehousing.
• A streamlined tech stack: A single system for each category across all locations simplifies integration and reporting. E.g. one POS system across all sites, one labour tool, etc.
• Minimal data sources: Connecting only a few data sources (e.g., sales and labour costs) makes setup easier.
• A uniform restaurant concept: Single or complementary concepts (e.g., all QSR or all fine dining) make standardising reports simpler.
• A small group of users: If only finance or a few team members need access, Power BI may be manageable.

Power BI may not be the best option if:

• You need real-time data: Power BI setups often struggle with real-time reporting, making it harder for general managers (GMs) to act on fresh insights.
• Your restaurant group has diverse concepts: Different reporting needs across multiple restaurant types can complicate Power BI implementation.
• You require high data granularity: Many visualisation projects start with broad scopes but lack the depth needed for operational decision-making.
• You want data accessibility for the whole team: Power BI can become expensive and complex if multiple departments need access.

To determine if Power BI is right for your restaurant, assess where you fall on the sliders below. If you fall more on the left, then it might be the right choice for you. But, if you’re more on the right, then it would be worth looking at alternatives like Tenzo. 

Setting Up Power BI for Restaurants

Implementing Power BI in restaurants requires more than just signing up for the software. You need the right infrastructure in place. We recently broke down all the steps needed to build your own reporting suite with visualisation tools, but here’s a simple breakdown:

1. Cloud Infrastructure – Choose a cloud provider to ensure data is accessible from anywhere.
2. Data Warehouse – Store large datasets efficiently for scalable reporting.
3. Data Integration & ETL – Extract, transform, and load (ETL) data to Power BI from various sources.
4. Visualization Tool – Power BI sits on top of this infrastructure, providing interactive reports.

Without this setup, Power BI may not deliver the seamless insights restaurant operators need.

A Smarter Alternative: Tenzo

If you’re considering Power BI for your restaurants, it’s worth exploring alternatives like Tenzo, a reporting and BI tool designed specifically for hospitality businesses.

Unlike Power BI, Tenzo handles the entire data pipeline—from cloud infrastructure and warehousing to integration and real-time visualisation. This means operators get instant insights without needing an in-house tech team.

With AI-powered forecasting, Tenzo enables restaurants to see past, present, and future performance in a single dashboard. Real-time, mobile-friendly insights ensure that every team member—from GMs to finance—can access the right data to drive performance.

Want to see how Tenzo can transform your restaurant’s data strategy? Get in touch with us today!