Viva Brazil is a Brazilian restaurant in Cardiff, Wales. Rising wage and business costs meant fewer reception hours, so managers shared the phones, and during busy service calls often went unanswered. Some customers emailed head office to book instead. The restaurant added Aila, an AI receptionist connected to its TableFox booking system, which takes bookings with party size, notes and allergy details straight into the system.
Business type: Restaurants & cafés. Tool used: Aila AI Receptionist (Focus Group) + TableFox. Result: Focus Group reports the AI added about £7,400 in extra gross revenue in its first three weeks, an ROI of over 3,400% in month one, and that the restaurant recovered about 60% of the time it spent on front-of-house calls. Its largest single AI booking was a party of 28. Setup took two weeks. Reported in Focus Group's customer story.
Source: Focus Group (Company case study) · Added Tue, Nov 3 · Last updated 2026-11-03
Focus Group reports the AI added about £7,400 in extra gross revenue in its first three weeks, an ROI of over 3,400% in month one, and that the restaurant recovered about 60% of the time it spent on front-of-house calls. Its largest single AI booking was a party of 28. Setup took two weeks. Reported in Focus Group's customer story. (as reported by the source)
Guide: AI receptionist for small business: real examples and how to set one up
Guide: AI phone ordering for restaurants: real examples and how to set it up
Viva Brazil is a Brazilian restaurant in Cardiff, Wales. Rising wage and business costs meant fewer reception hours, so managers shared the phones, and during busy service calls often went unanswered. Some customers emailed head office to book instead. The restaurant added Aila, an AI receptionist connected to its TableFox booking system, which takes bookings with party size, notes and allergy details straight into the system.
Aila AI Receptionist (Focus Group) + TableFox.
Focus Group reports the AI added about £7,400 in extra gross revenue in its first three weeks, an ROI of over 3,400% in month one, and that the restaurant recovered about 60% of the time it spent on front-of-house calls. Its largest single AI booking was a party of 28. Setup took two weeks. Reported in Focus Group's customer story. (as reported by the source)
Connect an AI receptionist to the booking system you already use. Have it take name, contact details, party size and notes on every call. Make sure allergy and dietary info goes into the booking.
Answers come only from the source. Questions it doesn't answer are left out.
Our own prompt for copying this setup. Swap in your details. Not quoted from the source.
You take phone bookings for [restaurant]. Get the date, time, party size, name, phone number and any allergies or dietary needs, check [booking system], and confirm. For parties over [number], take details and say a manager will call back.
Is this your business? Show you're featured. Paste this code into your website. The badge links back to this page.
<a href="https://smallbizagentusecases.com/use-cases/restaurant-ai-receptionist-takes-bookings-during-service/" title="Featured on Small Biz Agent Use Cases"><img src="https://smallbizagentusecases.com/badge/featured.svg" alt="Featured on Small Biz Agent Use Cases" width="250" height="56"></a>About the badge
A voice agent takes table bookings and sends them to n8n, which picks a free table, handles cancellations and reschedules, and frees tables after 90-minute slots, all in Google Sheets.
Red Rocks Café has two locations in Charlotte, North Carolina and has been open for over 30 years. Calls about takeout, catering and reservations piled up, and hosts, bartenders and managers kept leaving guests to answer. A voice AI now answers questions about hours, policies and dietary needs, handles reservations and takes event and catering enquiries.
Burma Love is a San Francisco restaurant with locations on Valencia Street and in Mint Plaza, plus a sister restaurant, Teakwood. Its phones used to ring dozens of times a shift with reservation and private event questions. It set up Hostie, an AI that makes and changes reservations, answers questions about hours and allergens, and transfers to a person when it gets stuck.