Every restaurant makes the same trade twenty times a night. A server is taking an order, the phone rings, and someone has to lose. Either the table waits or the caller does.
Three costs follow, and none of them show up on the till:
Bookings lost. A caller who gets a ring-out at 7:30pm books somewhere else. They rarely try again.
Service quality. The person answering is the person who should be on the floor.
Repetition. A large share of calls are questions already answered on your website, asked by people who would rather ask a human.
What Elio handles
The agent picks up in a few rings and covers the standard call in full.
Reservations: party size, date, time, name, phone, allergies or special requests, then written to your booking system or sent to you.
Availability: it knows your covers and your slot rules, so it does not confirm a table you do not have.
The five questions: opening hours, address and parking, dietary options, whether you take walk-ins, whether you have a set menu tonight.
Changes and cancellations: caught properly rather than lost on voicemail, which is worth real money on a Saturday.
Large groups and private hire: captured with the details and passed to you rather than booked automatically.
It is the AI receptionist setup with a front-of-house script. The cost comparison against a human service is on the AI answering service page, and the technology behind the conversation is covered in the AI voice agent guide.
Everything arrives with a transcript. When you need to call someone back, you already know why.
Rules that matter for a restaurant
Set explicitly during setup, because the wrong default is worse than no system:
What it may confirm on its own, and above what party size it must take a request instead. Most restaurants cap automatic booking at six or eight covers.
Your no-show policy, including whether it takes a card or a deposit, stated clearly on the call.
Dietary answers, in your words. This matters: allergen information is a safety and compliance question in most countries, so the agent reads what you wrote and never improvises. Anything it does not have, it flags for a human.
Peak-hour behaviour: whether it offers the waiting list, a different time, or a different day.
When to transfer: press complaints, journalists, suppliers, anything you want a person to take.
Want to hear it on your own calls?
We build the agent around your business, then give you a number to call before anything goes live.
Half the calls that matter arrive when nobody is in the building. Someone booking Friday on a Tuesday afternoon. Someone cancelling at 11pm who would otherwise be a no-show. Someone checking whether you open on a public holiday.
Those calls cost nothing extra to answer, because the pricing is flat. That is the structural difference with a human answering service billed per call, where the quiet hours are the expensive ones.
Setup
A 30-minute call: hours, covers, slot rules, menu basics, dietary policy, deposit policy, what should always reach a human.
We build and test the agent, then give you a number so you can call in as a difficult customer and hear how it handles you.
You set conditional forwarding. Calls nobody picks up reach Elio, everything else rings as normal.
Nothing installed, your number does not move, and forwarding can be switched off in a minute.
Pricing
Flat monthly, billed in USD, no per-call fee: Essential $169, Pro $449, a custom plan on quote. A single site with moderate call volume usually sits on Essential. Busy rooms, multiple sites or heavy weekend traffic tend to need Business. Included minutes and the overage rate are confirmed in writing before you sign. Figures are indicative and may vary with usage, country and plan.
Frequently asked questions
FAQ
Can it take a reservation into our booking system?+
Yes, for the common systems, respecting your covers, slot lengths and turn times. Where a direct connection is not available, bookings arrive by email or SMS in a structured format.
What about allergies?+
It reads back exactly what you wrote during setup and nothing else, and it flags any allergy request so a human sees it. Allergen information is a safety matter, so the agent never improvises an answer.
Will it handle large groups?+
It captures the request and passes it to you rather than confirming automatically, above whatever party size you set.
Does it answer when we are closed?+
Yes, at the same price, and that is often where the biggest share of the value sits: bookings for later in the week and late cancellations you would otherwise lose as no-shows.
Will customers mind talking to an AI?+
It says what it is at the start and keeps the call short. Compared with a phone that rings out during service, most callers prefer it.
Can it transfer to us when needed?+
Yes, on the triggers you define. Complaints and anything sensitive can go straight to a person.
How long does setup take?+
Usually about a day after the setup call, and the script is easy to adjust once you have heard a few real calls.
Stop sending customers to voicemail
Elio answers every call, qualifies the job and books it on your calendar. Flat monthly pricing from $169/month, live in about a day, no change to your existing number.