Egg custard buns are a common treat in China, where bao are steamed with all types of sweet and savory fillings.
A Golden Lava Bun is photographed at Noodles by Nina on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Denver. Owner Nina Zhang used ChatGPT to come up with a more appealing name for the restaurant’s egg custard bun to help boost sales. The recipe is the restaurant’s own. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Not so much in the U.S., said Nina Zhang, the 32-year-old co-owner of Noodles by Nina in Denver. Zhang, who 10 years ago moved from northwest China to study accounting at the University of Denver, thought English speakers needed a more enticing name for her yolk custard-filled dessert.
She went on her phone and onto ChatGPT, the AI chatbot she’s consulted for all kinds of restaurant matters since opening last year. After gaining assurance from the chatbot that locals would indeed be interested in the dessert, she instructed it to come up with an “American” name for it. What it suggested — the “golden lava bun” — is what ended up on the menu.
“There’s some traditional Chinese dishes you like [that], especially in Colorado, there’s not even one,” Zhang said. “I’m always like, ‘Okay, let me ask ChatGPT if American people will like it.’”
Like Zhang, local restaurateurs are using ChatGPT and similar chatbots to experiment with their recipes, design promotional fliers, manage inventory and handle workplace conflicts. The tool has helped them run their restaurants more efficiently at a time when many in the industry are making razor-thin margins, they said.
But what they’ve found to be an opportunity is seen by some of their peers as an existential and creative threat to their field. Despite their reservations and the lack of agreement on its appropriate uses, the restaurant industry is prompting AI to help them find some semblance of stability.
Co-owner Nina Zhang poses for a portrait at Noodles by Nina in Denver on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
‘You don’t have to pay for an assistant’
Before ChatGPT hit the mainstream, whenever Zhang had a question regarding her sushi restaurant in Westminster, she would ask her friends for advice. (There’s an active online group of Chinese restaurant owners in Denver, Zhang said.)
That changed after OpenAI introduced the revolutionary chatbot in late 2022. Visiting China last year, Zhang tested it against a popular Chinese chatbot, Doubao.
Back in the U.S., Zhang got to work on a hand-pulled-noodles concept. Dianwei Sun was her business partner. ChatGPT was her “assistant.”
Customers eat lunch outside Noodles by Nina on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Denver. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Aside from helping her adapt dishes for wider audiences, ChatGPT has also served as a broker. Scouting locations for new restaurants, Zhang prompted it to digest information such as resident demographics, rent prices and building histories, she said.
When she changed the restaurant’s name to Noodles by Nina, Zhang first consulted the chatbot, instructing it to scour state and federal trademarks and return a percentage chance likelihood the name wasn’t already in use. That gave her more peace of mind than the advice of attorneys they hired to do the same search.
She even turned to it when she needed to fire an employee, she said. After inputting the offense, the chatbot churned out tips on keeping a cool head and gently approaching the employee. The actual sacking was done by Zhang.
“I think it’s a really good tool,” she said. “You don’t have to pay for an assistant.”
Larger restaurant groups all in on AI
The back patio and VW camper dining room at Perdida in Wash Park. (Provided by Werk Creative)
No matter what they’re using chatbots for, the executive decisions are ultimately made by a human, Zhang and other restaurant owners who use AI chatbots said.
At Gastamo Group, whose roster includes Park Burger, Perdia, Lady Nomada and Homegrown Tap & Dough, CEO Peter Newlin encourages middle managers to try multiple AI tools. He uses Claude by Anthropic for financial modeling; ChatGPT for image generation and marketing; and Meta’s new agent, Muse, to help organize his taxes, he said.
“I’ve had this problem in my entire career where I just get distracted, and I’m focusing on stuff that appears fun, appears artistic, but is actually not producing any value,” said Newlin, 40, who previously helped build a proprietary point-of-sale system for the chicken-sandwich chain Birdcall.
“Being able to have these filters that keep you focused, allowing me to focus on actually what data suggests is going to have the best impact on your business, is really incredible,” he said.
The family owners of Los Dos Potrillos, a Colorado chain of Mexican restaurants, started using chatbots to help manage their inventory, CEO Daniel Ramirez said. It could determine whether they were ordering too much alcohol, rice or beans based on what was selling and what ingredients were left over, he said.
They now host AI-training sessions for employees at their headquarters. “We like to let AI guide our thoughts, not think for us,” Ramirez, 34, said.
He pointed to the relative objectivity of chatbots and their bevy of options as reasons to give them a try. “You can ask anything,” he said.
AI generation
But the unbound potential of chatbots to provide benefits to some restaurants has given others the existential creeps.
As the sole employee of his private, in-home pasta omakase operation, Domi, chef Matthew Drazick Halip would rather spend his time making sfoglia, his specialty pasta, using a thin rolling pin called a mattarello.
But he still has a $20 monthly subscription to ChatGPT Plus, which he uses to save time with tasks like making flyers to post on Instagram and balancing his inventory at the end of each night of service.
“You got to read out and look over everything. It’s going to make mistakes,” said Drazick Halip, who left The Wolf’s Tailor in February to focus on Domi. “It’s kind of like a stage or an intern. It makes mistakes.”
He recently prompted ChatGPT to make a flyer for a pop-up outside of a wine bar esp. Specifically, he requested a single-line abstract drawing of Venice using gray chalk that emulated Venetian art, with the time, date and menu for his event.
What could’ve cost $500, according to one quote he received on Instagram, was done by him over back-and-forth sessions with a chatbot.
He drew a line at prompting ChatGPT to generate images of realistic depictions of food, something that has become visible at food and drink vendors across town, both online and inside the restaurants. All the dishes at Domi are photographed by a friend of his for $175 a shoot, he said.
“The food photography is a lot different than creating a flyer,” he said. “If I really sat down and wanted to go on Canva, I could probably come up with a flyer myself.”
While Los Dos Potrillos doesn’t post images of food generated by chatbots — many have criticized the practice as making restaurants look all the same with unnervingly symmetrical food — Ramirez said he wouldn’t judge anyone for trying it. “In the end, what they choose to implement using it is completely up to them. That’s a choice of free will, and that’s on each person.”
The owners of Mother Other, a new vegan restaurant in Denver, balked when asked if they used AI to help with their opening. The duo started as a pop-up and gained business through appearances at farmers markets and the Food Network before they opened their full-service restaurant this summer.
“I could see AI being a tool that people use to get over that barrier to entry,” said Alexi Mandolini, Mother Other’s 37-year-old executive chef.
At the same time, “I would never use AI to replace an artist or something,” she said. “I don’t want these creative industries to die.”
Neither, seemingly, does Sandomi, a Japanese sandwich counter at Edgewater Public Market whose owner could not be reached for comment. The shop made its anti-AI stance clear on a series of photos posted on Instagram earlier this month.
“WE WILL NOT BE USING AI FLYERS TO PROMOTE OURSELVES,” read a message scrawled on a notebook and held up to the camera outside the market. “INSTEAD, WE WILL BE USING PAPER AND MARKER.”
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