AI for restaurants: five ideas that give time back to service

A small restaurant's admin happens in the hours either side of service: the phone ringing at six, the rota on a Sunday night, the reviews nobody has had time to answer. Five ideas on this site take on those jobs, for between nothing and about $77£58€69A$111C$109 a month each. Every cost and saving below comes from the worked example on each idea's page. The examples are illustrative, built from typical figures rather than a named restaurant, so put in your own covers, wages and hours.

The five ideas at a glance

• Online gift vouchers with Square: no monthly fee and about $21£16€19A$31C$30 a month in card fees, worth about $718£540€643A$1,037C$1,015 a month in profit in the example.
• Review reply drafts: free to about $27£20€24A$38C$38 a month, saving about $69£52€62A$100C$98 a month of time.
• Table bookings and reminders in resOS: about $52£39€46A$75C$73 to $77£58€69A$111C$109 a month, saving about $251£189€225A$363C$355 a month of staff time.
• AI website chat with Tidio: about $37£28€33A$54C$53 to $45£34€40A$65C$64 a month, saving about $64£48€57A$92C$90 a month.
• Staff rota and shift swaps in RotaCloud: about $53£40€48A$77C$75 to $64£48€57A$92C$90 a month for up to 20 staff, saving about $239£180€214A$346C$338 a month.

Start with what you already pay for

If Square already runs your till, start with gift vouchers. Square Gift Cards have no monthly fee, only card fees, and you redeem them at the till you already use. In the example, a 40-cover Bristol restaurant sells about 15 eGift cards a month at $80£60€71A$115C$113. If those bring in $1,197£900€1,071A$1,728C$1,692 of meals that wouldn't otherwise be eaten, that is about $718£540€643A$1,037C$1,015 a month in profit at an assumed 60% margin, against about $21£16€19A$31C$30 in card fees. The 15 vouchers is an assumption, and December will be busier. Voucher money is owed to customers until they eat, Square's gift cards don't expire, and VAT on vouchers depends on what they can be spent on, so ask your accountant how to record them before the Christmas rush.

If you don't use Square, start with review reply drafts instead: it's free on ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and you can do it today. A 38-seat restaurant in Brighton getting about 25 Google and TripAdvisor reviews a month cuts each reply from 8 minutes to about 3, roughly $69£52€62A$100C$98 a month at $33£25€30A$48C$47 an hour. Paste the review text without the reviewer's name, read every line of the draft, and delete any promise you don't mean, such as a free meal. Square users may also find a sandwich shop's account of Square AI useful: the owner says it answered sales questions in moments that had taken him hours, though the shop was paid by Square to take part.

Bookings and questions while you serve

resOS takes the biggest steady drain off the phone. A 40-cover bistro in Harrogate taking about 280 bookings a month puts a booking link on its website and Instagram. If 60% of guests book online, an assumption, staff time on bookings falls from about 23 hours a month to under 11, worth about $251£189€225A$363C$355 at $20£15€18A$29C$28 an hour. The free plan stops at 25 bookings a month, so a working restaurant needs Basic at €45 (about $52£39€46A$75C$73) for up to 350. Deposits need the Online payments add-on, SMS reminders cost €0.10 each, and Reserve with Google is a separate extra.

Tidio's Lyro chat answers the website questions about hours, parking, children and private dining from a one-page FAQ, and sends people to your booking link, so the two ideas work as a pair. A 50-cover Leeds restaurant saves about $64£48€57A$92C$90 a month, against about $37£28€33A$54C$53 to $45£34€40A$65C$64. The saving is small, so add it after bookings are working. Lyro answers confidently from whatever you give it, so if you change your hours and forget the FAQ, it sends diners to a closed door.

Phone answering by AI isn't one of the site's restaurant ideas yet, but there is a real account of it. A 14-site US restaurant group uses an AI phone host for bookings, and its director of business development says one restaurant had more than 250 overlapping calls in a single week. The figures are the company's own, relayed by a newspaper column, and its estimate of covers saved is a guess rather than a measured result.

The rota

RotaCloud builds the week from a template, lets staff mark when they can't work and handles swap requests in the app. A 40-cover Norwich restaurant with 12 staff cuts rota work from about 16 hours a month to about 7, roughly $239£180€214A$346C$338 at $27£20€24A$38C$38 an hour, for $53£40€48A$77C$75 a month on Standard. Pricing is by employee band, including you and your managers, and at 21 staff it moves to $80£60€71A$115C$113. The pricing page doesn't say it checks breaks, rest periods or the hours of under-18s, so that stays with you. Approve each swap yourself, so a shift is never left with nobody trained to open the kitchen.

The rule for all five: allergens and guest data

Every one of these ideas draws the same line: no software and no AI tells a guest what is safe to eat. That information comes from your recipe and supplier records and a trained person. In practice that means four habits.

• A 'nut allergy' note on a resOS booking is information from the guest, not a check. It goes to the manager, who speaks to the guest and checks your allergen records before service.
• Set Lyro to pass every allergy, dietary and ingredient question to a person, test it with 10 such questions, and switch it off if it ever answers one itself.
• Set aside any review that mentions allergy, illness or injury and reply to it yourself, after checking your records.
• Guest names, phone numbers and emails are personal data under UK GDPR. Use them for the booking, and add guests to marketing lists only with their consent under PECR.

Where to start

This week, write five lines on your tone of voice and use them with ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to answer last month's unanswered reviews, leaving any about allergies or illness for yourself. If you're on Square, set up eGift cards, buy one online and redeem it at the till to test the whole flow before you link to it from your website. Then count last month's bookings: if it's well past 25, price resOS Basic and put your tables and sitting lengths in before you move anyone off the phone.