How Odd Couple + SULU Use 7shifts to Simplify Scheduling and Strengthen Communication

 

Andy Yuen grew up in restaurant kitchens, watching his family work long hours to build a life through food. After immigrating from Hong Kong, his uncle and parents ran small-town Chinese restaurants across Saskatchewan—family spots known for their long menus and loyal regulars.

At the time, the population in his small town of Wynyard was less than 2,000. And there weren’t many diverse food options, especially when it came to Asian cuisine.

And at first, Andy thought restaurant life wasn’t for him. He earned degrees in civil engineering and economics and spent nearly a decade in that field before the pull of the kitchen brought him back. 

In 2007, he and his dad opened Chopsticks, a modernized take on the small-town Chinese restaurant—an early step toward redefining Asian dining in Saskatchewan. The family sold it in 2013 to focus on other priorities.

About a year later, Andy decided to move away from engineering entirely and launched Odd Couple with his parents and wife, Rachel. The goal was to create an elevated Asian restaurant where guests could enjoy cocktails, wine, and bold, modern flavors—and Odd Couple quickly filled a gap in Saskatoon’s dining scene.

 

Then, in 2024, when a prime downtown restaurant space became available, Andy and Rachel jumped at the chance to expand. They purchased the existing space—formerly home to a popular Korean-Japanese restaurant—and transformed it into SULU, their modern take on Asian cuisine shaped by years of experience and community insight. Opened in February 2025, SULU further reflects their shared vision for how Asian food can evolve and adapt locally.

We sat down with Andy to talk all things tech—and how 7shifts helps Odd Couple and SULU run smoothly as a simple scheduling and communication solution.

 

 

The problem: Too many communication apps

Before 7shifts, one of the main issues Andy faced was with group messaging—he didn’t like having to send out mass texts, especially because different staff use different platforms for communication. 

“It’s nice if everyone uses Apple, but you have staff using like five million different phones, and then sometimes the text doesn’t look good.”

Odd Couple also previously used Excel for scheduling and then moved to When I Work because Andy felt a tech upgrade was needed. But he decided to make a switch around seven years ago to support a local, Saskatoon business: 7shifts.

 

Since then, 7shifts has become his choice of scheduling platform, while also solving the issue of decentralized communication among staff. And when SULU opened, the platform continued to support his operations across the second location.

The solution: Scheduling & communication made easy

Andy shares more about how 7shifts supports the day-to-day operations at Odd Couple and SULU on the day-to-day:

Time saved on scheduling

With 7shifts, time spent on scheduling has gone down significantly. Andy explains that his wife, Rachel, is in charge of scheduling and used to spend at least two to three times longer on the process. 

“I would say [it takes] probably 45 [minutes] to an hour for her to do every two weeks if it’s by Excel, and then using 7shifts—probably 15 minutes.”

With the time savings, Rachel can focus on other priorities with restaurant operations. And Andy explains that relying on a scheduling platform, like 7shifts, is just as important as moving away from paper-and-pen reservations: “If you ask us, we’ll never go back to that.”

 

 

One place for communication

Andy also loves that 7shifts provides a centralized place for staff communication: “It’s good because it keeps everything in one place. I don’t have to send a group text for 10 people. I just really don’t like that.” 

“I’m on all the time. I’m sure my managers are on all the time because that’s where we get to communicate […] I never thought that we would use it to communicate that much.”

He adds, “There’s more communication between the staff when they want to drop shifts. I think it’s easy for them.” He shares an example of a staff member who was away for most of the year but returned for the summer and wanted to pick up shifts—something made simple through 7shifts.

 

 

Visibility among multiple locations

With SULU now on Andy’s plate too, he explains the benefit of using 7shifts to monitor two places at once: “I really like the fact that I get to flip between the two restaurants, and then I know who’s working for that day. I really like how easy that is.”

“I can press a couple of buttons, and I can just look at two different places.”

He adds how it also supports scheduling shared staff between the two stores: “We try not to schedule someone for doubles. Sometimes, people get burnt out, so those are the things I would check.”

The final word

To wrap things up, Andy notes that another perk of adopting the Saskatoon-based tool is the fact that many new hires already know the ins and outs of the platform from a previous role. He ends off with one final quote to sum up his thoughts:

“7shifts has saved us a lot of time in terms of scheduling, and it’s become a really good communication tool for our team. It’s one app, but then has multiple features that help make our front-of-house operation smoother.”