WIRED: When You Call a Restaurant, You Might Be Chatting With an AI Host
Press
AI for restaurants, made by restaurants
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Product
If you own a restaurant, you’re no stranger to tech that is designed to automate and optimize nearly every part of the dining experience. But customers don’t just come to restaurants to eat – they want a unique, human-first experience that they’ll love.
We designed Hostie to offer the best automated guest management system that learns and engages with nuance. The tool doesn’t just answer calls – it’s built to learn the nuances of restaurant hospitality and engage with all of your systems, to feel like a natural and essential addition to your operations.
The AI integrates directly with the tools you’re already using – existing reservation systems, POS systems, and even event planning software. This means it can both take in information and act on it simultaneously.
The dinner rush was in full swing at Back to Back – the wood-fired pizza restaurant I opened in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood. Tables were full, and pizzas were flying – but amid the chaos of restaurant life, there was a single, constant, and mind-numbing sound: the phone ringing.
As co-owner, I watched our top notch, yet exhausted staff pour everything out to maintain a high bar of hospitality every night. We wanted to maintain our high-quality customer service, but the incessant need to answer calls, respond to reservations and takeout orders over the phone, and manage private event inquiries had us running on empty.
Yet we knew we couldn’t just ignore the phone – each ring was a potential opportunity to serve our customers and grow our business. But we soon realized that we had to either change how we managed our restaurant or risk missing out on valuable opportunities.
If you run a restaurant, you know how it feels to operate on the margin. That’s why I partnered with Brendan Wood – an accomplished AI engineer – to create Hostie: which helps automate the full spectrum of restaurant guest communications.
What originally started as a solution to help reduce the tension at Back to Back has quickly grown into something much bigger. Hostie results from experience running a restaurant to hours spent working with some of the best restaurant teams in San Francisco and New York – shaping our AI to deliver exceptional hospitality and reduce overhead.
Hostie learns your restaurant and becomes your AI assistant. It can handle all kinds of requests: from simple reservation changes (“Sorry, I’m running late”) to complex private event inquiries (“I’d like to book a party for 50 people”), even complicated order modifications (“Can I get this pizza without pepperoni and a gluten-free crust?”).
Conversations that would bother a staff member while they’re greeting and seating guests can now be managed by our AI system that’s easy to implement and delivers exceptional hospitality.
The result? Smoother operations and staff that can focus on their skills – not managing every tiny detail.
Core communication features
Reservation Management
Order Management
These features are tried and true. After integrating Hostie with partner establishments such as Flour + Water and Slanted Door to help their teams enhance their guest communication management, we now handle over 80% of their guest communications automatically – and their teams have reported a growing customer satisfaction in the dining experience and customer service.
Starting at just $199 a month, you can start implementing AI into your guest communication system and capture more walk-ins, take more reservations, and continue delivering exceptional service.
Are you ready to see Hosite at work? Schedule a demo today and start using AI to deliver the best in the restaurant business.
