About
Built by operators, for operators.
Lodat is a small team of operators and engineers building tools for businesses that depend on real-world venues: restaurants, bars, cafés, event spaces.
We started by running our own venue, GOOOD in Mansfield. We hated being squeezed by tech that nickel-and-dimed us on covers, took commission on orders we'd already worked hard to win, locked us into hardware we didn't need, and delivered support that ranged from slow to non-existent.
So we built VenueOS as the platform we wanted: one subscription, every surface a venue actually needs, and no commission. Independent operators get the same tooling that chains have, without the chain-store overheads.
We're not a marketplace. We don't take a cut of your customers. We sell software, the same way SaaS used to.
If you're an operator and want to talk shop (about hospitality, about the platform, about what's missing), we'd genuinely love to hear from you.
Operator-built
Maxwell G. Effah, founder
Lodat builds operating systems for industries we run ourselves. The first product, VenueOS, exists because Maxwell, owner of GOOOD Restaurant & Lounge in Mansfield, needed software that worked the way a real operator thinks. After years of paying for tools that didn't talk to each other, he built one platform that did.
Most hospitality SaaS is built by software people. VenueOS is built by an operator. Every decision, from the kitchen pacing logic to the allergen-handling discipline, comes from a real Friday-night service. It is tested where it counts.
VenueOS is the first of three products under Lodat. The thesis is simple: operators who run businesses are best placed to build the software those businesses need. Keptable, our second product, applies the same playbook to appointment-driven services.
