Two people, one AI, and the stubborn belief that your menu deserves better.
garnish started the way most good ideas start: with a problem we couldn’t stop noticing.
The Origin Story
It all began with a pen and a paper menu.
Chris’s first menu audit wasn’t powered by AI. It was a ballpoint pen, a printed menu, and a growing list of things that were costing her ex-husband’s restaurant money: misspellings that eroded trust, prices formatted in ways that made guests flinch, high-margin items buried where no one would ever look.
That instinct never went away. Years later, after building a career in writing, editing, and design, she kept reading restaurant menus the way a mechanic listens to engines — hearing the problems most people miss. Mike, meanwhile, spent two decades in data and marketing technology, helping enterprise clients squeeze more value out of the information they already had. He also bartended his way through college, and has never lost the hospitality reflex of reading a room.
When AI became good enough to do in seconds what used to take a consultant weeks, we looked at each other and said: We should build this.
garnish is what happened next. No outside funding. No employees. No venture capital pitch deck. Just a writer who can spot a pricing psychology mistake from across the dining room and a data strategist who knows how to turn insights into revenue… All powered by AI that never gets tired and never misses a typo.
The Team
Meet the founders.
Christine Keene
Product & Brand, Introvert
Chris has been editing things since she was copy editor of her high school yearbook in 1985. She fell into graphic design as a receptionist in her early twenties, teaching herself on a Macintosh Classic with Aldus PageMaker 1.0. That self-taught instinct — spotting what’s off, knowing how to fix it — is the engine behind every garnish audit. She writes the prompts, designs the brand, reviews every report, and fights with CSS so you don’t have to.
Mike Keene
Revenue & Operations, Extrovert
Mike bartended through college, then spent his career in marketing and advertising — local ad agencies, a major telecom provider, and nearly two decades at a leading data technology company, where he’s now a Senior Vice President managing enterprise client portfolios. He’s the one who builds relationships, and turns a free audit into a paying customer. He also once ran a fast-food franchise and will happily tell you why that chapter lasted exactly one chapter.
When we’re not auditing menus, we’re at home in Arkansas with Fletcher the bernedoodle and Pretzel the standard poodle, both who have strong opinions about everything except typography.
Why Garnish
Menu consultants charge thousands. We think $49 should get you most of the way there.
A traditional menu consultant can cost $2,000–10,000 per engagement and takes weeks to deliver. That’s great if you’re a 50-location chain with a corporate budget. It’s not great if you’re an independent restaurant owner who just needs someone to tell you that “Ceaser Salad” is costing you credibility and your dollar signs are costing you revenue.
garnish uses AI to deliver the same caliber of analysis in minutes, at a price that makes sense for the people who need it most: independent operators who care deeply about their craft and want their menu to reflect that care. Every finding comes with a severity rating, a specific explanation, and an actionable fix. No vague advice. No jargon. Just the finishing touch your menu needs.
Questions? Ideas? Just want to say hi?
We read every email. Seriously! There are two of us and one AI, and the AI doesn’t check the inbox.