Restaurant & Hotel Technology Opening Checklist
Restaurant and hotel openings compress dozens of technology dependencies into one date. This checklist helps ownership, operations, construction, finance, and technology teams identify the work early enough to design, order, test, and support it.
Strategy, ownership, and budget
Establish the technology workstream before orders are placed.
- Name the executive sponsor, project lead, property operations lead, finance contact, facilities contact, and technology owner.
- Define the property concept, operating hours, guest experience, staffing model, event needs, and revenue-critical systems.
- Build a technology budget covering design, circuits, cabling, network, devices, POS/PMS, payment, voice, AV, security, licenses, labor, spares, and contingency.
- Create a responsibility matrix for ownership, general contractor, low-voltage, ISP, vendors, internal staff, and ongoing support.
- Track contracts, deposits, lead times, renewals, cancellation terms, access, data ownership, and support obligations.
Infrastructure and connectivity
Confirm physical and carrier dependencies while design changes are still possible.
- Order primary internet early and determine whether temporary and backup service are required.
- Validate MDF/IDF locations, rack space, cooling, grounding, power, UPS, pathways, and property access.
- Coordinate structured cabling for access points, POS, printers, phones, cameras, access, AV, displays, office devices, and building systems.
- Design firewall, switching, Wi-Fi, IP addressing, VLANs, site-to-site connectivity, remote access, monitoring, and configuration backup.
- Separate guest, staff, corporate, payment, operational, voice, camera, access, AV, IoT, and vendor systems appropriately.
- Perform coverage validation after furnishings and operating equipment are in place.
Operational systems and devices
Test workflows, not only hardware.
- Confirm POS or PMS scope, interfaces, payment terminals, printers, kitchen or front-desk dependencies, back office, reporting, and support.
- Map online ordering, reservations, loyalty, gift card, accounting, payroll, inventory, scheduling, and other integrations.
- Define computers, tablets, handhelds, shared devices, mobile devices, printers, scanners, displays, and spares.
- Establish Microsoft 365, identity, email, file, collaboration, MDM, application, and onboarding standards.
- Design voice, IVR, queues, front desk, departmental lines, emergency calling, analog requirements, and number porting.
- Coordinate music, AV, meeting rooms, event technology, digital signage, paging, cameras, access, intercom, and alarm vendors.
Readiness, opening, and handoff
Protect the opening date with staged testing and clear ownership.
- Create a test plan for guest, employee, payment, operations, management, vendor, and failure scenarios.
- Validate internet failover, power behavior, device replacement, remote support, credential access, and escalation paths.
- Train managers and staff on normal use, issue reporting, security, payment handling, and recovery procedures.
- Complete inventories, diagrams, warranties, licenses, carrier details, vendor contacts, contracts, credentials, and runbooks.
- Schedule go-live coverage, issue triage, vendor escalation, punch-list ownership, and a post-opening stabilization period.
- Conduct a lessons-learned review and update the standard for the next property.
Need help leading the technology workstream?
Kennedy IT Solutions supports hospitality design, procurement, deployment, opening readiness, and ongoing multi-property operations.