Purchasing Guides / Restaurant Phone Orders & Reservations

Restaurant Phone Orders & Reservations

A purchasing guide to an AI phone workflow for restaurants, deployed in your environment. It answers calls, takes takeout orders and table requests from your current menu and booking rules, and passes the rest to your staff.

Yearly running cost

Assuming 12,000 calls a year

By hand: $17.6K / year; 800 hours of work
Subscription: $4.8K+ / year
This workflow: $1.7K / year; Machine usage only; setup, hosting and review are extra.

What should it handle on the phone?

Answer calls during service, take takeout orders and table requests from your current menu and booking rules, and pass everything else to your staff.

Take orders and table requests for my staffAnswer, read back and queue for staff$1,224 – 3,600 setupSend orders and bookings to my systemsPoint of sale orders and live table availability$2,088 – 5,880 setup

Your staff handle allergies, complaints, refunds, large groups and anything off the approved menu. No card payments by voice and no promises the kitchen or floor cannot keep.

What is included

Answers calls with your approved greeting, answers hours and menu questions from approved information, takes takeout orders with items and modifiers from the current menu, takes table requests within your rules, reads everything back and stores it with the recording for staff to accept.

Start with your menu and modifiers, opening hours, booking rules, large-party and allergy policies, and recorded or role-played example calls. The connected option sends confirmed orders to your point of sale and books tables in your reservation system; it never takes card payments by voice.

How accurate should orders and bookings be?

Picking up the phone is not enough. Choose how often orders and bookings are complete and correct, and how reliably allergy, group and complaint calls reach your staff.

StandardCorrect orders and table requests with allergy, group and unclear calls passed to staff.Correct orders: ≥95%Correct table requests: ≥97%IncludedStrictMore difficult-call tests and a second check of each order against the menu.Correct orders: ≥98%Correct table requests: ≥99%Setup +$288 – 840My own targetsAgree your own acceptance requirements with the provider.Quote separately

How these standards are measured

Test on held-out recorded or role-played calls with background noise, changed items, unavailable dishes, allergy questions, large parties and callers who ask for a manager. Measure complete orders, complete reservations and handover separately; a call with no stored record is a failure.

Targets for your selected standard
What is checked	Target
Correct ordersAn order passes only when every item, modifier, quantity and pickup or delivery detail matches the labelled call; extra, missing or off-menu items fail.	≥95%
Correct table requestsA request passes only when date, time, party size, name and phone number match the labelled call and the booking rules.	≥97%
Correct handoversAllergy questions, groups above the phone limit, complaints, refunds and requests for staff that reached staff, divided by all such labelled calls.	≥95%
Calls with a stored recordEvery answered call, including dropped and spam calls, must leave a stored outcome with transcript and recording link.	≥100%

The assistant says it is automated, follows recording consent rules and never answers allergy or food safety questions itself. Menu items, prices and modifiers come from the current approved menu, not from the model.

How quickly should the order or booking reach your staff?

Choose how soon after a call ends the read-back order or table request should appear for your staff. The caller is answered straight away in every option.

Within 30 secondsIncludedWithin 15 secondsSetup +$144 – 480Within 8 secondsSetup +$288 – 840

Timing details

Time from the end of the call to a stored order or reservation, including transcription, menu matching, system calls and retries. Pauses during the conversation are tested separately. Confirm peak call volume and hardware with your provider.

The target applies to at least 95% of agreed test runs, with 4 in progress at a time.

How much do you want to spend per call?

Choose the machine budget per answered call. Tighter budgets may use a shorter menu context, cheaper voices or fewer checks.

Up to $0.25IncludedUp to $0.18Setup +$72 – 360Up to $0.12Setup +$216 – 600

Cost details

Includes phone line minutes, speech recognition, speech output, model calls, retries and shared hosting allocation. Phone numbers, point of sale and reservation subscriptions, delivery fees, staff time and the calling agent are separate.

Reference machine cost: $0.16 – 0.20 per call at 1000 calls a month. The selected cap is a target to test, not a replacement for this estimate.

Where do you want it to run?

Run the phone workflow in your cloud or on your own server. Choose whether call audio and text may go to approved speech and AI services.

Run it onAI model access

Data and access details

Runs in a cloud account you control, with access controls, call logs and recordings kept there.

Call audio goes to the approved speech service and the transcript to the approved model. Agree retention and access first.

Calls still arrive through a phone carrier. Keep recordings and guest details in your environment, tell callers they are speaking with an automated assistant and follow local recording consent rules. Private speech and AI models need your own hardware and a pilot.

How do you want to use it?

Use an order and booking screen, your current AI agent or a dedicated restaurant agent. You can choose more than one.

An order and booking screenStaff see each read-back order or table request, play the call and accept, change or call back.IncludedMy existing AI agentAsk your agent for open orders, table requests and calls waiting for a manager.Setup +$72 – 240A dedicated agentUse a dedicated agent to review the shift's calls, menu questions and follow-ups.Setup +$144 – 480

Anything else your provider should know?

Optional. Your choices are included automatically.

Calls per monthYour setup budget (USD)

Your menu, booking rules or systems

Common questions

Do I need this if I already use a restaurant phone answering subscription?

Not necessarily. Keep it if it handles your orders, bookings and rules. A separate workflow makes sense when you need your own menu logic, recordings in your environment or systems the subscription does not support.

Will it answer allergy questions?

No. Allergy and food safety questions always go to your staff, with the caller's question recorded.

Does it take card payments over the phone?

No. Orders go to staff or your point of sale as unpaid, and guests pay through your existing process.

What happens when the menu changes?

The workflow uses the current approved menu. With the connected option it syncs from your point of sale; otherwise your team updates the menu file.

Can I run it without external AI services?

Yes. Choose private speech and AI models and supply your own hardware. Calls still use a phone carrier, and voice quality and cost are measured in the pilot.