5-minute schedules, 20-minute payroll: How 2d Restaurant maximizes efficiency with 7shifts

 

Ever wanted to take a bite out of a fluffy mochi donut while sitting in a hand-drawn, comic-style cafe? That’s the idea behind 2d Restaurant—an immersive Asian eatery located in Chicago, Illinois.

The dynamic husband-and-wife duo behind it, Kevin Yu and Vanessa Thanh Vu, spent over two years bringing their vision of a Parisian-inspired fantasy world to life inside the 1,600-square-foot space. Kevin explains, “[It] was based on the honeymoon that never happened for us. We were supposed to visit Paris during the pandemic, which we had to postpone.”

 

 

With Vanessa’s background in hospitality design—having worked on projects for high-end hotels like Hilton and Hyatt—and Kevin’s experience in food and retail operations, the concept came together naturally.

Kevin had spent over 11 years in retail and previously owned a couple of ramen restaurants before the pandemic hit. When his newborn son arrived, he sold the business back to his partner to focus on family.

But the restaurant industry just kept calling him back.

 

Today, the brand’s main location is going four years strong in Lake View, Chicago. It’s since grown with a second location at the Timeout Market, specializing in Asian drinks and desserts, along with immersive, experiential exhibits throughout the community.

We sat down with Kevin to talk all things 2d Restaurant—and how 7shifts has helped the brand grow at its flagship location with smarter tools that save time and keep his team happy.

 

Finding 7shifts after trying provider after provider

Kevin recounts the challenges he faced at 2d Restaurant before adopting 7shifts: “A lot of the trouble or roadblocks we had before were based on integration.” He cites a few examples, such as:

• Inaccurate reporting across time-tracking, scheduling, and payroll
• Payroll platforms failed to recognize trouble codes (e.g., for missed clock-outs)
• Compliance issues with tips, overtime, and other legalities

“All those things have created limitations from service to service.” 

So, after trying two different scheduling providers, Kevin found 7shifts through his own research. He looked at a few case studies and eventually took a leap of faith. As for payroll, Kevin says, “I was looking for solutions that could pair well with Square as a POS. Through my research, I found out about the 7shifts payroll service, and after a few calls with the team, we took another leap of faith.”

“And so far, it’s been working well for us.”

Using 7shifts to schedule, pay, and onboard employees efficiently

After switching to 7shifts for scheduling and payroll, Kevin has helped his team maximize efficiency. He explains that this is especially true because of the platform’s robust integrations.

“In terms of operators and management, it’s about the ease of the integrations—not only within the house between 7shifts payroll and 7shifts schedules, but also its ability to integrate with other platforms, such as POS, to retrieve the information.” 

And he highlights how well the platform pairs with Square POS: “7shifts is able to pull information from Square—from sales, from tips—which is very helpful when it comes to payroll. It saves us tremendous amounts of time […] In terms of what 7shifts has to offer with Square, I believe it’s sufficient enough for most of the small to medium-sized operators.”

When asked about his experience communicating with the 7shifts team, he also says, “The service team usually gets back to us in a timely manner and really showcases the willingness to resolve any troubles.”

More specifically, here’s how Kevin uses the platform day-to-day at 2d Restaurant to schedule, pay, and onboard employees efficiently:

✅ Creating schedules in as little as 5 minutes

Kevin says, “If you’re comparing it to a typical scheduling solution that’s not built specifically for hospitality, [7shifts] definitely provides a lot more tools,” mentioning another scheduling tool he’s looked into that does not have the option to look into productivity.

And his scheduling process with 7shifts only takes a few easy steps: forecasting sales, reviewing time-off requests, and then verifying the week for special events. “From there, we would just copy and paste a schedule from the previous week and make adjustments accordingly.”

And the result is remarkable speed: “If I don’t have any time off or special orders throughout the week, I could usually get it done in under 5 to 10 minutes. If there are major changes, such as orders, events, or staff requests, it could go up to about 15 to 20 minutes.”

He also says, “It makes the conversation of scheduling more consistent from team member to team member,” highlighting the transparency 7shifts offers with time off and availability requests.

✅ Paying employees in as little as 20 minutes 

Kevin explains, “Payroll, personally, for me, is the most important operation in the hospitality business. It is not only the largest single expense for us on a weekly basis, but also the most important tool of retention. Without a proper payroll, that’s going to dramatically affect your retention overall and hurt your bottom-line profit.”

So, choosing 7shifts payroll was a strategic move to protect his restaurant. His process with the platform always starts with step one: verifying time clocks. He says, “The ability to filter out missed clock-outs is really helpful. It saves me a lot of time.” As a force of habit, though, he still chooses to go through each team member’s time cards to spot anything unusual. 

Once that’s done, he makes sure tips are distributed evenly, double-checks a few more items, and then simply submits payroll. And like scheduling with the platform, it’s extremely quick: “7shifts payroll takes roughly about 20 to 25 minutes for me every week.”

“If we compare it to how it was done back in the early 2010s, I would say we could easily save 3 to 5 hours a week. Integrations and the distribution of tips by points definitely save us tremendously.”

“Payroll is the most important and essential element of hospitality business, and 7shifts is really putting the necessary care and function to entrepreneurs and business operators to ensure the success and efficiency of the payroll operation on a weekly basis. That not only helps us create better team member retention and engagement, but also improves the day-to-day operations of all operators so we can focus our time and effort on growing the business.”

✅ Automated tip pooling to stay compliant

Kevin adds, “My favorite feature is probably the tip pooling—how it’s able to set up in the back-end and also help me not worry so much about the distribution of the tips. Highlighting efficiency again, he says, “The tip pooling probably gives us a solid 3 to 4 hours’ savings per payroll, compared to the old days.”

 

✅ Onboarding in a few simple steps

Kevin also uses 7shifts for onboarding, and in his experience, “[It] really lessens the panic of onboarding a team member compared to the olden days, where we had to fill out the W-2s and I-9s by hand.”

He adds, “The ability to onboard team members—also the simplicity of onboarding the team member—saves us and managers at least 35 to 40 minutes per employee […] And those are pretty significant savings for the industry.

How 7shifts keeps employees at 2d Restaurant happy

Kevin also explains that 7shifts doesn’t just make an operator’s day-to-day work easier—it helps keep employees happy, simplifying processes on their end, too.

☑️ One platform for all their needs: “From the employee’s perspective, the benefit’s definitely simplification. It happens year after year, team after team, where the employees are panicking at particular times, especially during tax season. By having a system, which they could retrieve all their information under one roof, simplifies their process […] Just the ease of use of pulling their year-end documentation, their W-2s—under one platform—I think that is definitely a plus for the employees.”

☑️ User-friendly, intuitive functions: “I think 7shifts definitely helps with team member retention by providing an easy UI to understand to input their levers, such as availability and time off. It also gives them a clear overview of their pay and also the benefits the company has to offer—such as time off requests, time off balance, and paid time off. It definitely would help with the retention of our team members, compared to other platforms, which do not offer such functions.”

He adds, “I could see that it could improve the retention of our team members by at least 2 to 3 times by having an easy, understandable UI for communication between our team members and our management.” 

The final word: “I often recommend 7shifts”

As for some final remarks, Kevin says he would—and does—recommend the platform to others.

“Whenever I talk to my fellow business operators, I often recommend 7shifts—being a solution that’s not only efficient but trustworthy. It really saves operators and entrepreneurs time, focusing on key issues that can drive success to our business.”