Evidence over scores
A rating is a signal, not a story. The visit behind it — the table, the check, the timing — is what makes follow-up useful.
About
The review is where the story starts.
ShiftLift is a restaurant review-management tool built to go deeper. Managers need to know what guests felt, what happened on the check, and what to do next. Connected business intelligence brings those questions together — with customer retention at the center.
Roles, not leaderboards
Comparisons are role-aware, with transparent sample sizes and configurable priorities. Sparse data says so instead of manufacturing a recommendation.
Connected, not replaced
The POS and reservation system stay the source of truth. ShiftLift reads what they already capture and brings it into one investigation.
Honest about gaps
Missing data stays missing. Ambiguous matches stay unresolved. Freshness is shown, not hidden.
Who built this
Built on the floor. Sharpened by data.
By restaurant owners, for restaurant owners. Zach’s turnaround experience meets Scott’s data-science perspective — connecting what guests feel to what managers can actually change.
From global franchises to independent restaurants
Zach Feinstein
Co-founder, ShiftLift
Before co-founding The Feinstein Group with Christina in 2014, Zach built his career turning around Burger King operations. TFG’s story describes him taking the company’s worst district to its best, then traveling internationally to help turn around some of the system’s largest franchisees through Burger King’s SWOT Team.
He earned his Six Sigma through McKinsey, bringing a disciplined, root-cause approach to restaurant problems. He now applies that experience to independent operations: TFG’s five restaurants and bars include The Black Pearl, The Living Room, Sonder Social Club, and Highland House.
The data perspective
Scott Fainstein
Co-founder & Data Scientist, ShiftLift
Scott brings a data science perspective to ShiftLift, combining industrial design, entrepreneurship, and digital analytics experience dating to 2009. His work spans measurement strategy, reporting, and optimization for Fortune 500 companies. Through his own company, he worked with Elias to develop a business intelligence platform for American Electric Power (AEP).
That experience inspired him to bring enterprise-level analytics within restaurant owners’ reach. COVID paused the idea. Meeting Zach supplied the missing connection: linking guest sentiment with restaurant performance.
At ShiftLift, that discipline meets the restaurant floor, revealing the sentiment and visit context behind a lower check average or weaker tip percentage. The aim is better-informed decisions, measurable results, and insights managers can act on.
Find the cause. Not just the symptom.
Financials, product mix, guest reviews, and training records belong in the same investigation. Zach has seen the scale of a global franchise and the thin margins of a neighborhood restaurant. That is the thinking behind ShiftLift: trace a concern to the visit, understand what happened, take action, and measure the change.
Where the product stands
ShiftLift is a working product with documented operational data integration and live interfaces — Toast synchronization, visit-linked surveys, item-level check context, and OpenTable enrichment. It is built as a connected solution — review management, customer retention, and the business intelligence underneath — rather than a survey bolted onto a dashboard: ratings, checks, spend, and role-aware team analytics live in the same workspace. A focused redesign is underway to make the evidence behind every number easier to reach.
We want the first useful insight to create value from day one — whether that's less time investigating a guest concern or a better-informed coaching conversation. That is our goal, not a promise of first-day payback. Request a demonstration and evaluate the opportunity for your restaurant.
Request a demo