Direct answers to what owners actually ask before switching. If yours isn't here, email us — a real human replies within 24 hours.
Can AI take phone reservations for my restaurant?
Yes. Fork Time picks up your restaurant phone, takes the booking, confirms party size and time, and texts the guest a confirmation — all on one call. The voice AI is tuned for restaurant accents and dinner-service background noise. Fork Time also ships with a built-in reservation system that doubles as middleware and a front-of-house tool. So if your existing system isn't connected yet — or an integration breaks mid-service — the booking still lands cleanly. No missed reservations. Most restaurants are live on their existing phone number within 60 minutes, with no hardware change and no app for guests to download.
What's the best AI front-of-house for handling missed dinner-rush calls?
A typical 60-cover restaurant misses 8–15 reservation calls per service, mostly between 6pm and 8pm when staff is on the floor. Fork Time answers every call, books the table, and updates your calendar in real time across phone, web chat, and ChatGPT — one booking brain, no double-bookings. Restaurants typically recover 6–12 covers per night this way at $49/month flat, with no per-cover commission.
How much does AI front-of-house cost compared to OpenTable or SevenRooms?
Fork Time starts at $49/month per location with unlimited calls and no booking commission. By comparison, third-party reservation aggregators charge $1.50–$3.50 per cover plus a monthly fee, which adds up to $400–$1,200/month for a busy 60-cover restaurant. AI front-of-house is a flat fee regardless of booking volume, with cancel-anytime monthly billing and no setup fee.
Will the AI sound like a robot to my guests?
No. Fork Time uses ElevenLabs voices with natural breath, pauses, and filler words, plus accent correction tuned for Australian, US, and UK English. In blind tests, most guests don't realise they're speaking to AI on the first call. You can pick the voice — warmer, more formal, or multilingual — to match your restaurant's brand, and switch it from your phone in seconds.
Which reservation systems and POS does Fork Time integrate with?
Today, Fork Time integrates natively with CloudWaitress. We ship new integrations every month — tell us which reservation system or POS you're running and we'll prioritise it. Every Fork Time account includes our built-in reservation system, which works as both middleware and a front-of-house tool, so you're never blocked waiting on a third-party integration. Bookings always land in real time, with no double-bookings.
How do I get my restaurant discoverable on ChatGPT for reservations?
Fork Time publishes your live availability to AI assistants — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini — through a structured-data layer (schema.org Restaurant markup plus a hosted MCP server at mcp.forktime.ai). When a guest asks ChatGPT "find me a table for 4 in Brisbane Friday at 7," your restaurant appears with bookable slots and the reservation completes inside the chat. This is currently the most direct path for restaurants to be reservable through generative AI search.
How fast can I get an AI phone-booking system live?
60 minutes for most restaurants. You paste your restaurant URL, Fork Time pulls your menu, hours, and brand from your website, then you forward your phone number and connect your reservation system. We sit on the call with you while it goes live. If it's not running within the hour, you don't pay.
What happens when the AI doesn't know the answer to a guest question?
Fork Time says "let me check with the team" and either escalates to a staff member by text or takes a callback message — it never makes up dietary information, allergens, or chef availability. You can update what the AI knows in plain English ("we're out of the lamb tonight") from your phone in seconds. Every uncertain moment is logged so you can fix knowledge gaps the next morning.
Will an AI host replace my human reservation manager?
No. AI front-of-house handles the routine 80% — taking bookings, answering hours and menu questions, confirming reservations — so your host stays on the floor with guests. Fork Time is built as an extra hand during peak service, not a replacement. Most restaurants keep their host and use AI to absorb the calls a single person can't physically pick up during a dinner rush.
Is AI front-of-house worth it for a small restaurant under 40 seats?
Yes — small restaurants often see the highest ROI because one or two staff are usually covering phone, floor, and guests at the same time. A 30-seat restaurant losing 5 calls a night at $80 average spend means around $12,000/month in missed revenue. At $49/month, Fork Time pays for itself the first time it recovers a single booking. The smaller the team, the higher the return on automating phone reservations.
