Founder’s Story From Waitress to Founder: How Danielle Casilio Built Yelli, a Training Tool Restaurants Actually Need By Cory Casilio, Co-Founder | Cory@YelliApp.com
What happens when a working waitress gets tired of watching good employees fail because nobody gave them a clear way to learn the job? For Danielle Casilio, the answer was to build the tool herself. Danielle started waitressing at 15 and spent a decade moving through restaurants — a rural Pennsylvania diner, a Texas biergarten, a rooftop spot with Hollywood Hills views. Everywhere she landed, her knack for organization meant she got handed the training program. She did it with binders, sticky notes, and group texts — and it never quite worked. In 2019, she set out to fix it. That idea became Yelli, a training and communication app built for restaurants. Instead of managers juggling binders and scattered group chats, Yelli gives them one place to build training plans, assign them to new hires automatically, and push real-time updates the moment something changes — a menu item, a procedure, a policy. Danielle's goal was simple: simplify how restaurants train and communicate, and both the staff and guest experience improve. That idea came from the floor, not a boardroom, and it's still the standard the product is held to. Yelli is now used by restaurant groups nationwide to cut training time, reduce turnover-related retraining, and keep menu knowledge consistent — without a single printed binder. Danielle's story is a reminder that the best tools come from people who did the job long before they built the software for it.
Danielle Casilio, CEO Founder | danielle@yelliapp.com
Hospitality News / National Edition / Sept 2026 / Page 13
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