You know what? I'm done pretending everything's fine.
Last week, I'm sitting with my buddy Mike—owns three Italian places on the East Side—and he's literally pulling his hair out. Why? Because while we're talking, his phone's going crazy, his hostess just put her third caller on hold, and I can see two tables worth of walk-ins leave because nobody acknowledged them for five minutes.
"I'm hemorrhaging money," he tells me. "And I don't even know how much because I can't track the calls we miss."
Yeah. Welcome to restaurants in 2025.
Can We Just Admit We Have a Problem?
Here's the truth nobody wants to say out loud: We suck at the basic stuff.
I don't care if you've got a James Beard winner in your kitchen or your sommelier trained in France. If you can't answer your damn phone, none of that matters.
Think I'm being dramatic? Let me hit you with some numbers that'll ruin your day. Over HALF of restaurants are scrambling—and I mean scrambling—to find AI solutions. Not considering it. Not thinking about it. Actively searching because they're drowning.
Why? Because that romantic idea of the neighborhood restaurant where everybody knows your name? It's dying under an avalanche of missed calls, botched reservations, and stressed-out staff who'd rather work literally anywhere else.
And before you tell me "but we're different, we're about hospitality"—stop. Just stop. There's nothing hospitable about making someone listen to hold music for ten minutes.
When Someone Finally Said "Screw It, Let's Try Something New
This is gonna sound like BS, but I swear it's true.
White Castle (yes, the drunk-food-at-2-AM White Castle) decided to throw an AI assistant at their phone problem. They called it Julia, which… whatever, I guess naming your robots is a thing now.
Here's what happened: This thing handles 90% of their orders. By itself. No human needed. In under a minute.
But here's the part that knocked me on my ass—their customer friendliness scores went UP. By 14%.
The Robot Was Friendlier
Sit with that for a second. Their customers literally preferred talking to Julia over talking to their actual human employees. You know why? Because Julia wasn't exhausted. Julia didn't just get yelled at by the previous caller. Julia wasn't counting down the minutes until her smoke break.
Julia just… worked. Every time. Consistently. Without the attitude.
The Money Part (And Why You're Probably Screwing Yourself)
Alright, let's talk numbers, and I'm warning you—this is gonna sting.
You know what a decent phone person costs? I mean really costs, not just their hourly. When you factor in training (two weeks if you're lucky), turnover (because they ALWAYS leave for the place paying 50 cents more), benefits, the whole deal… you're dropping 45K a year. Easy.
For ONE person. Who can handle ONE call at a time. Who calls in sick. Who has bad days.
Now, an AI system that actually works? Six grand. A YEAR.
But wait, there's more (God, I sound like an infomercial).
Here's the killer—one of our clients did an audit and found out they were missing 30% of their calls. THIRTY. PERCENT. During busy times, it was closer to 50%.
Do that math. I'll wait.
Average ticket of 45 bucks. Missing every third call. That's… Jesus, that's like setting money on fire. Repeatedly. Every single night.
"But Won't My Customers Hate It?"
No.
Next question?
Okay, fine, I'll elaborate. You know what your customers hate? Here's a list I made while on hold with my dentist yesterday (seventeen minutes, but who's counting):
- Being on hold
- Repeating their order three times
- Spelling their name over and over
- Getting attitude from stressed staff
- Having their dietary restrictions forgotten
- Calling back because their order was wrong
You know what they don't hate? Getting their call answered immediately by something that:
- Understands them the first time
- Remembers they hate onions
- Knows every ingredient in every dish
Can handle "Um, I want the… thing with the chicken? But like, without the sauce?"
Never, ever sounds annoyed.
I watched a demo where someone ordered like they were having a stroke: "Yeah so I need… wait, do you deliver? Okay cool, so the pasta thing, but my wife doesn't eat gluten, is that… oh and we're at the Marriott but not the downtown one, the airport one? And can you make sure there's extra bread but on the side?"
The AI handled it. Perfectly. Even confirmed which Marriott
Meanwhile, I know servers who would've hung up halfway through that word salad.
How This Actually Works (For Us Non-Tech People)
Look, I barely understand how my iPhone works, so I'm not gonna pretend to get the deep tech here. But here's what matters:
It doesn't sound like a robot. This isn't "PRESS ONE FOR ENGLISH" nonsense. It sounds like… well, like your best host on their best day. It laughs at jokes. It says "mmm-hmm" when you're thinking. It's creepy how human it sounds, honestly.
It knows everything. Connected to your POS, your reservations, your inventory—the works. When you 86 the short ribs, it knows. When the Johnson party has a nut allergy in their profile, it knows. When someone says "the usual," it actually knows what that means.
It learns. This is the wild part. Every call makes it smarter. It picks up your lingo, learns your specials, figures out that when people ask for "that appetizer with the cheese," they mean the fundido, not the quesadilla.
It handles chaos. "Party of eight but two might be late and one's vegan and we need a high chair but not near the kitchen and is your parking lot full because grandpa can't walk far and do you take Discover?"
Handled. No stress. No sighing. How to Not End Up Like McDonald's.
Oh man, did you follow that disaster? McDonald's spent God-knows-how-much on AI that got orders right… 80% of the time. EIGHTY PERCENT.
In restaurant math, that's catastrophic. That's one in five orders wrong. That's Yelp reviews that start with "I don't usually write reviews but…"
Here's where they screwed the pooch
They went massive immediately. Hundreds of locations. No testing. No learning phase. Just "Hey, let's revolutionize everything overnight!" Brilliant.
They used generic garbage. Some call-center tech with a McDonald's skin slapped on it. Surprise! It didn't know that "Mickey D's" meant McDonald's. Or that "the Travis Scott" was a meal, not a person asking for Travis Scott.
They didn't train it right. You need MINIMUM three weeks teaching this thing your menu, your modifications, your local slang. "Pittsburgh style" means something very different in Dallas than it does in, you know, Pittsburgh.
They accepted mediocrity. 80% accuracy and they kept going. That's like keeping a line cook who burns every fifth steak.
The stuff that actually works for restaurants? We're talking 95-99% accuracy. Because it's built by people who've actually worked the floor and know that "86" doesn't mean the year their grandma was born.
Where This Is All Going (Spoiler: Everywhere)
I'm calling it now—in five years, not having AI in your restaurant will be like not having a website. Or not taking cards. You'll be that weird place that makes everything harder for no reason.
But here's what gets me excited (and I don't get excited about tech stuff): This isn't about the robots. It's about what happens when the BS goes away.
Imagine your best server's brain—their knowledge, their charm, their ability to upsell without being pushy—available 24/7. Never hung over. Never in a bad mood. Never quitting to go back to school.
Imagine knowing exactly when your rush hits. Not guessing. Knowing. Because the AI's been tracking patterns and can tell you "Hey, you're gonna get slammed at 6:47 tonight" at 4 PM.
Imagine never losing another catering order because someone didn't write it down right. Never seating an anniversary couple next to a kids' birthday party. Never having a regular walk because "nobody told me they were coming."
That's not the future. I saw it working yesterday. In a taco joint in Phoenix.
So What Are You Waiting For?
I'm gonna be straight with you because someone needs to be. Every day you don't do this, you're choosing to:
- Lose money
- Stress out your staff
- Piss off customers
- Fall further behind
Harsh? Maybe. True? Absolutely.
Here's your homework (yeah, I'm giving you homework):
For one week, track every missed call. Every hold time over 2 minutes. Every wrong order. Every time someone hangs up. Be honest about it.
Calculate what those misses cost you. Not just in lost orders—in reputation, in stressed staff who quit, in your own sanity.
Ask yourself: If someone offered to fix all of that for the cost of a part-time host, would you take it?
Because that's what we're talking about here
Look, Here's the Deal…
I've been doing this since before OpenTable existed. I've owned, managed, consulted—the whole nine yards. I've seen every "revolutionary" thing that was supposed to "transform restaurants."
Most of it was crap.
This isn't.
I know that because I'm watching it save restaurants. Real ones. Run by people like you and me who are just trying to make good food and keep the lights on.
TableWise AI works because it was built by people who've been in the trenches. Who know that "on the fly" is a speed, not a suggestion. Who understand that every missed call is a regular you might lose forever.
You didn't get into this business to be a phone operator. You got into it to create something special. To build community. To make people happy with great food and genuine hospitality.
It's time to get back to that
Stop letting the phone run your life. Stop watching money walk out the door. Stop accepting "that's just how restaurants are" as an answer.
Because it doesn't have to be that way anymore.
And deep down, you know I'm right.
Ready to stop bleeding money and start running the restaurant you actually dreamed about? Let's talk. No BS, no pressure, just a real conversation about how to fix what's broken. Because you've got better things to do than answer phones, and your customers deserve better than busy signals.