An end-to-end hospitality workforce platform with scheduling, payroll, TabChat, events, and marketing, wrapped around a public professional network where the bartenders, chefs, servers, and sommeliers you love are actually findable when they move venues.
Category: Hospitality Workforce Platform
Tech Stack: TypeScript, React 18, Node.js 20, Express 5, PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, WebSockets, Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid, Cloudinary, Cloudflare Workers
TabPref is a full hospitality workforce platform and a professional network rolled into one. On the operations side: shift scheduling, payroll, internal team communication through TabChat, event management, and marketing tools, everything a venue needs to actually run its team. On the public side: a discoverable profile for every bartender, server, chef, sommelier, and venue, so the guests who love them can find them when they move on. Where LinkedIn ignores hourly service workers, TabPref treats them as the talent they are.
The idea has been with me for 10 years. My favorite bartender left the place I'd been going to for years, and I had no way to find where they'd landed, even though we'd built a real connection over countless shifts. The same thing happens constantly: the chef whose menu you fell in love with, the hairstylist you finally trust, the nail tech who always gets it right, the sommelier whose recommendations you'd follow anywhere. These professionals build relationships with the people they serve, then disappear into a new venue with no way to be found.
From there it generalized into the operational platform underneath. Hospitality runs on people who move between venues constantly, but their professional identity, schedule, paycheck, and team conversations have nowhere coherent to live. Tips don't follow them. Reputation doesn't follow them. A great bartender at one bar starts from zero at the next one. So TabPref grew up alongside the network: one profile, one schedule, one paycheck, one team chat, one venue operations stack, all built around the simple idea that great service professionals deserve to be seen, followed, and paid like the talent they are.