# An AI receptionist for your restaurant’s phone

> HungerCall is an AI receptionist for UK restaurants and takeaways. When your team is busy it answers the calls you divert to it, takes the food order or table booking, prices it from your own menu, texts the customer a payment link and prints the kitchen ticket. It costs £49 a month plus £2.00 per accepted order up to £100 and £3.00 per confirmed booking.

Canonical page: https://hungercall.uk/ai-receptionist-for-restaurants/
Last updated: 2026-11-07

## At a glance

- **What it is:** An AI phone assistant that answers the phone for UK restaurants and takeaways
- **Which calls it answers:** The calls you divert to it: when your line is busy, when nobody answers, or all calls. You keep your own number.
- **What it handles:** Collection and delivery orders, pre-orders, table bookings, questions about your menu and restaurant, order status and complaints
- **What it passes to your team:** Allergy questions, refund requests, changes to saved orders and calls for the manager, by a real phone transfer while you’re open
- **When it answers:** During your opening hours, plus pre-orders and table bookings from 8am until you open
- **How customers pay:** A payment link by text and a secure payment page, or pay at collection or to the driver
- **In the kitchen:** A printed ticket on an 80mm thermal printer, and every order on a tablet dashboard
- **Language:** English-speaking callers and UK phone numbers
- **Price:** £49 a month, £2.00 per accepted order up to £100 (plus 5% of the part above £100) and £3.00 per confirmed table booking; 120 minutes and 100 texts a month included
- **Set-up:** Done with you: your menu, the assistant, its phone number and your kitchen printer

## What the AI receptionist does on a call

It answers with your restaurant’s name and works through the call one question at a time.

### Takes the food order

Items, dish notes, collection or delivery and the time wanted. If it isn’t sure what the caller means, it asks. The total comes from your own price list, worked out by HungerCall’s system, not by the AI.

### Takes table bookings

Date, time, number of guests, name and phone number, plus any special request. The customer gets a confirmation text and a reminder about an hour before.

### Answers questions

Questions about your menu and your restaurant. Anything it can’t confirm, such as ingredients or today’s availability, goes to your team.

### Looks up an order

A caller can ask where an order they placed from the same number has got to, whether it is paid and what it came to.

### Writes up complaints

It takes a complaint calmly and saves it as a support case for your manager. It never approves or promises a refund.

### Passes on business calls

Genuine supplier and business calls for the manager are put through while you’re open. Silent and nuisance calls are ended and not charged to you.

## How it differs from voicemail or a message service

### The order is taken, not a message

The call ends with a priced order on the dashboard and a ticket in the kitchen, not a note asking someone to ring back.

### Paid before cooking

An order paid online only reaches your kitchen once the payment provider confirms the payment.

### You stay in control

Pause new phone orders with one tap, set the kitchen to Busy or Very busy to change the ready time it quotes, and mark a dish out of stock on the tablet.

### Calls on record

Play back calls with a transcript beside the audio. Recordings sit behind their own PIN.

## What it doesn’t do

### It isn’t on overnight

After you close for the night and before 8am it says you’re closed and ends the call. From 8am it can take pre-orders and bookings.

### It doesn’t check table availability

Bookings are checked against your dining-room hours, but tables are not counted, so it can’t stop two bookings for the same table.

### It speaks English

It is built for English-speaking callers. We don’t make promises about particular accents, so hear it for yourself on a demo.

### It needs your kit online

The dashboard needs an internet connection, and printing needs your printer connected. A ticket waits in the queue until the printer is back.

## Questions restaurants ask

### Is HungerCall an AI receptionist for restaurants?

Yes, for your restaurant’s phone. HungerCall is an AI phone assistant for UK restaurants and takeaways: it answers the calls you divert to it, takes food orders and table bookings, answers questions about your menu and restaurant, and puts callers through to your team when it can’t help. It works during your opening hours and takes pre-orders and bookings from 8am until you open. Overnight it says you’re closed and ends the call.

Link to this answer: https://hungercall.uk/faq/#q-ai-receptionist

### Can I keep my own phone number?

Yes. Your customers keep ringing the number they already know, and you divert calls to the number we set up for the assistant. You choose when: if your line is busy, if nobody answers, or for all calls. We suggest starting with ‘busy’ and ‘no answer’, so your team answers what it can and the assistant takes the calls you send to it. On a landline the divert is a short dialling code; on a mobile or internet phone line you set it up in your provider’s app.

Link to this answer: https://hungercall.uk/faq/#q-keep-number

### What happens when the assistant can’t help?

While you’re open, the assistant puts the caller through to your team, by a real phone transfer to a number you choose. That covers anything it can’t confirm, such as ingredients or today’s availability, and an order that has already been saved, which it won’t change or cancel itself. If nobody picks up, it takes a message and saves it as a case for your manager, without promising a callback. When you’re closed there is nobody to put the call through to, so it tells the caller you’re closed and ends the call.

Link to this answer: https://hungercall.uk/faq/#q-cant-help

### Does it take table bookings, and does it check availability?

It takes bookings by phone: the date, time, number of guests, name and phone number, plus any special request such as a birthday, which it records but doesn’t promise. The booking appears on the dashboard calendar and prints a slip in the kitchen, and the customer gets a confirmation text with a reminder about an hour before. It checks the time against your dining-room hours, but it does not check availability or count tables, so it can’t stop two bookings landing on the same table. A caller can ring back from the number they booked with to change the number of guests or cancel; a new date or time is a new booking.

Link to this answer: https://hungercall.uk/faq/#q-table-bookings

### How does it sound, and does it cope with accents?

It answers with your restaurant’s name and speaks brisk, plain English in short sentences, one question at a time. Replies take a few seconds, and if one is slow it says ‘Just a moment’. It is built for English-speaking callers and UK phone numbers, and everything it says and texts is in English. We don’t make promises about particular accents or other languages, so the best test is to hear it on a demo.

Link to this answer: https://hungercall.uk/faq/#q-sound-and-accents

### What does HungerCall cost?

The AI Voice Basic phone assistant is £49 a month. It includes 120 minutes a month for enquiries and 100 texts. Each accepted order up to £100 is £2.00; above £100, 5% is added on the part over £100 (a £150 order is £4.50). Each confirmed table booking is £3.00. After the included allowance, extra minutes are 20p each and extra texts 10p each. Social media packages are separate: AI Content Creator is £99 a month and AI Social Pro is £219 a month.

Link to this answer: https://hungercall.uk/faq/#q-cost

Book a demo: https://hungercall.uk/contact/ · sales@hungercall.uk · +44 7469 341143