AI chatbot for restaurants

Restaurant websites get a narrow, extremely predictable set of questions: are you open right now, do you take reservations, is there parking, do you have vegetarian or allergen-friendly options, do you do private events. None of these require a person to answer, and all of them are currently costing someone a phone call during dinner service if there's no chatbot handling them.

The knowledge base is usually a short, high-value list of Q&A pairs plus a crawl of the menu page if it exists as text (a PDF-only menu is worth also uploading as a document source, since crawling can't reliably extract it). Hours, reservation policy, dietary accommodation, and private event inquiries cover the large majority of what visitors actually ask.

Private event and large-party inquiries are worth specifically routing through lead capture — these are higher-value than a standard reservation and usually need a human to actually coordinate, so having the bot collect party size, date, and contact details as a lead rather than trying to book it directly gets the right information to whoever manages events without an extra back-and-forth.

For restaurants already using a separate reservation platform, the chatbot doesn't need to replace it — linking directly to the reservation page for anyone ready to book, while handling the surrounding questions (hours, dietary options, dress code) that the reservation platform itself doesn't answer, covers the gap most reservation widgets leave.

Want the full picture? Read our guide on ai customer support agent that answers from your own content.