An AI receptionist for restaurants that never misses a dinner-rush call
During service the phone competes with the host stand, the pass and the dining room. Ceres builds an AI receptionist that answers every call, takes reservations and orders, and tells your team exactly what it did.
Updated November 6, 2026 · Ceres Intelligence, Ontario, Canada
The phone rings hardest when nobody can answer it
Friday dinner, Saturday brunch, the hour before the game: those are the moments the phone rings most, and the moments your team has the least free time. A caller who reaches voicemail often just tries the next restaurant.
Covering those hours with extra staff is hard to justify, and pulling a host off the floor costs you in the room. An AI receptionist takes the repetitive calls (menu questions, bookings, takeout orders) so your people stay with the guests in front of them.
What it handles for a restaurant
Menu and house rules
Hours, flavours, ingredients, parking, patio and private-dining rules, answered from information you approve.
Table reservations
Party size, date and time are checked and saved to a shared file that all your staff can open.
Carry-out and dine-in orders
The order is read back to the caller, then entered straight into your POS.
Text confirmation
The guest and the manager both receive an SMS confirmation.
Anything it should not answer
Questions it cannot answer, or that you mark as sensitive, such as allergies if you choose, go to a person.
A summary of every call
Every call ends with a short summary for your team.
Watch: what happens when a guest calls
A 70-second narrated walkthrough of the restaurant workflow, from the first ring to the confirmation text.
What the video shows
- A guest calls and the AI answers as the restaurant's assistant, 24/7.
- It answers menu and house-rule questions, books tables, and takes carry-out and dine-in orders.
- Orders go straight into your POS, and the guest and manager both get a text confirmation.
- It names the POS systems it connects to, including Clover, Square and Toast, with integration confirmed for each restaurant.
- Four steps from first meeting to live calls: Learn, Connect, Test together, Go live.
The “busy Friday night” graphic in the video is an illustration only. Your own numbers will vary. Length: 1 minute 10 seconds, narrated.
Listen: a full order call, start to finish
A 90-second simulated call. Callers in several languages ring in, then the AI receptionist answers, takes a takeout order, handles a change of mind, flags an allergy for staff, reads the order back and sends it to the kitchen.
About this demo
This is a simulated call for illustration. The voices are synthetic, and the restaurant and the order are fictional. The AI receptionist in a real project is set up around your menu, your systems and your call flows, and results depend on them.
What a call sounds like
Here is the kind of exchange a restaurant receptionist handles, including the moment it hands a question to a human.
Illustrative example written by Ceres. It is not a recording of a real customer, and your own receptionist is scripted to your business.
POS and booking systems restaurants use
Many restaurants run on Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, TouchBistro or SpotOn. The AI receptionist connects to your POS through the vendor's API or partner program where one exists. Integration is confirmed for each restaurant before you commit.
| System | Developer access | What we found | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square (POS, Bookings, Appointments) | Public API | Orders, Payments and Bookings APIs are documented publicly. | Vendor docs |
| Toast | Partner program | API access is issued through Toast's partner and integration programs. | Vendor docs |
| Clover | Public API | REST API for orders, payments and inventory. | Vendor docs |
| Lightspeed (Restaurant and Retail) | Public API | Developer portal covering Restaurant and Retail products. | Vendor docs |
| TouchBistro | Partner program | Integrations are offered through its partner program. | Vendor docs |
| SpotOn | Not verified | Commonly ranked for restaurants. We did not find public developer documentation. | — |
| QuickBooks Online | Public API | Accounting API for customers, invoices and payments. | Vendor docs |
Developer-access status reflects what each vendor publishes (reviewed November 6, 2026). It shows whether a developer interface exists, not that Ceres has already built a connector for it. Access, plan level and data permissions vary by vendor and by account, and are confirmed with each business during discovery. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Ceres Intelligence is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any vendor named here.
From first meeting to live calls
Every Ceres project starts with a two to three week pilot, so you can hear it, test it and judge it before you commit to a full rollout.
Learn
We collect your services, hours, rules and the answers you want given.
Connect
We link your phone number, text alerts and booking or POS system.
Test together
You call it. We tune the answers until you are happy.
Go live
Then a monthly review of calls, bookings and hand-offs.
Where this stands. Ceres built its first complete AI receptionist for dental clinics across the GTA, and it is now in pilot. The same voice, scheduling and hand-off engine is configured for each new business and industry, with your own scripts, rules and systems. Example calls on this site are illustrative, not recordings of real customers.
Questions people ask
Can an AI receptionist take takeout orders into my POS?
Where your POS offers an API or partner program, yes. The order is read back to the caller, entered in the POS and confirmed by text to the guest and the manager. Square and Clover publish public APIs. Toast and TouchBistro work through partner programs. Ceres confirms access for your specific account during discovery. See the integrations page for the full list.
What happens when the AI cannot answer a question?
It answers only from information you approve. Anything outside that, or anything you mark as sensitive, is passed to a member of your team, and the call summary tells them what the caller wanted.
Will callers know they are speaking to an AI?
Yes. The receptionist introduces itself as the AI assistant. Being open about it is part of how Ceres designs these systems, and it keeps callers comfortable asking for a person when they want one.
How is an AI receptionist priced?
Ceres charges a one-time setup fee for planning, building, customizing and integrating the receptionist for your business, then pay-as-you-go pricing based on minutes of call time, with no monthly fee. The setup fee depends on your systems and call flows, so we quote it after discovery.
Use the savings estimator to model your own call volume and see what it could be worth before you talk to anyone.
How long does it take to get live?
Ceres starts with a pilot of two to three weeks. In that time we learn your business, connect your systems, test calls together and tune the answers, then go live with a monthly review of calls and outcomes.
Stop losing the calls you cannot answer.
Start with a pilot at one location. Hear it, test it and see the results before you scale.