By business type
The allergen line a restaurant assistant must never cross
Almost everything a restaurant gets asked online is administrative and repetitive: are you open, what time is last orders, can you seat nine, do you have a set menu. All of it is worth taking off the phone during service. One category is different, and it is the one people ask most anxiously. An assistant must never confirm that a dish is free of an allergen, however clearly the menu is labelled.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- what time do you stop serving food
- are you open on monday
- do you have a table for 8 on saturday
- is there a set menu at lunch
- do you have vegan options
- is the risotto gluten free
- does this contain nuts
- can we bring a birthday cake
- do you take a deposit for large groups
- are children allowed in the bar area
- is there a corkage charge
- do you have step free access
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| Service times rather than opening times | When the kitchen opens and closes, last orders for food and for drinks, and how all of that differs on a Sunday or a public holiday. The gap between the door being open and the kitchen serving is the single most common misunderstanding a restaurant deals with, and most sites publish only one of the two. |
|---|---|
| Menus with their dietary labelling as you publish it | The current menus with whatever vegetarian, vegan and dietary marks you use, plus a plain statement of what those marks mean and what they do not. Index them so the assistant can describe the range of options, never so it can certify an individual dish as safe for an allergy. |
| Your group booking and deposit terms | The party size at which the rules change, the deposit per head, whether a set menu becomes compulsory, the pre-order deadline, the cancellation notice and the charge for a reduced party on the night. Large tables generate the most emails and every one of those points is a separate question. |
| Licensing, age and area rules | Which areas children may be in and until when, whether under eighteens can dine in the bar, whether you serve alcohol outside certain hours, and your policy on dogs. Licensing conditions vary by venue and by market, so publish yours rather than letting an assistant reason from what is usual. |
| The practical visit information | Where to park and for how long, the nearest station, step free access, accessible toilets, whether the dining room is upstairs, high chairs, and whether you have an outside area and whether it is covered. |
| Occasion and private hire policies | Whether you allow a cake and if there is a charge, corkage, whether you do a private room, minimum spends, and what a Christmas or celebration menu involves. These arrive as enquiries months ahead and are entirely answerable from a document. |
What has to reach a person
Every allergen question, without exception
This is the hardest line in this family. A guest asking whether a dish contains nuts, gluten, dairy or shellfish is asking a question where a wrong answer causes a medical emergency, and the true answer depends on tonight's supplier, tonight's substitutions and what else is being prepared on the same surface.
The assistant may say which dishes are marked on the menu and that the kitchen takes allergens seriously. It must never say a dish is safe, free from, or fine for somebody. The correct behaviour is to hand over to the restaurant directly, before the booking and again on arrival, and the refusal wording should say exactly that.
Anything about a specific booking
Whether a table exists on Saturday, whether a reservation was received, whether it can be moved to seven thirty. The assistant has no view of the booking system unless you connect one, and inventing availability produces a family standing in a doorway.
It should say plainly that it cannot see the diary, point at the booking link or the phone number, and take a name and message if the guest wants a call back.
Large groups, private hire and events
Anything above your normal table size involves a room, a menu decision, a deposit and often a date the venue is deciding between two enquiries for. That is a commercial conversation and it should reach whoever runs the diary while the enquiry is warm.
A complaint about a meal or a visit
A guest describing a bad experience is not looking for information. An assistant that answers with a policy paragraph escalates the complaint rather than resolving it. Take the details, say a manager will respond, and get it in front of one.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot confirm whether a dish is free from any allergen, because that depends on what is in the kitchen tonight. Please tell us directly when you book and again when you arrive, and the team will go through it with you. I can help with service times, the menus, group bookings, parking and access.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Allergen information duties are legal duties in most markets
Food businesses in most markets are required to provide accurate allergen information about what they actually serve, and the duty attaches to the business rather than to whoever happens to be answering. An assistant answering in the restaurant's name is the restaurant answering.
The safe position is narrow and simple: describe the menu labelling, never certify a dish, and always route the guest to a person before they eat. Write that into the refusal rather than trusting a model to hold the line each time.
Menus change faster than indexed material does
Specials change daily, suppliers substitute, and a dish that had no dairy in it last month may have some this week. That is another reason allergen answers cannot come from an index, and it is a reason to point the assistant at the menu page you actually maintain rather than a file uploaded at launch.
Licensing and age rules are venue specific
Permitted hours, whether children may be in a bar area, and until what time are set by the venue's own licence and by local rules where you trade. There is no general answer to reason from, so if it is not in your indexed material the assistant should refuse rather than generalise.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- Whether a dish is free from any allergen, or safe for somebody with an allergy.
- Whether a table is available on a particular date or time.
- Whether a specific booking exists or has been changed.
- Whether an ingredient can be left out of a dish tonight.
- Whether children are permitted somewhere the licence has not been indexed for.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a restaurant rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- The one restaurant question that must end in a phone callState what your menu labelling says, never certify a dish, and route every allergy question to the kitchen by phone before the guest eats.
- Why last orders matters more than the opening timeThe door being open and the kitchen serving are two different times, and most restaurant sites publish only one of them.
- Set menus, minimum spends and the table of twelveParty thresholds, set menus, minimum spends and pre-order deadlines answer well. The date itself needs whoever holds the diary.
- The per head charge nobody read before they bookedA card held against a table and a charge per empty seat only hold up if the guest was told first. That telling is the work.
- The handover a restaurant cannot do by emailA callback form suits a private hire enquiry. For an allergy before tonight's service it does not, and the wording must lead with the phone.
- The car park closes before the second sitting doesThe multi storey locks before the late sitting finishes, the bay outside is a loading bay, and the evening tariff starts on the hour.
- A table is a slot, not an eveningShifting a table from seven to eight is not small when the same table is booked again at nine, and a chat window cannot move it.
- The wait time is an estimate made by somebody standing in the roomHow the list actually works: a number left with the host, a wait that is a guess, and a table for two seated ahead of a six.
- The guest is not asking for informationA cold main, a forty minute gap between courses, a table by the door. What to record, and why the answer is never a policy paragraph.
- The menu price is not the line at the bottom of the billThe set lunch runs on certain days, the fish is market price, the steak carries a supplement, and service goes on at the end.
- A cancellation typed into a chat box is a no showReleasing a table takes notice the kitchen can still use, and cancelling in a chat window is not cancelling. Say which channel counts.
- Step free to the door is not the same as step free to a tableThe question is which table, not which room: fixed banquettes, a step at the door, and a toilet down a flight of cellar stairs.
- The card machine took it, so the card machine has to explain itA deposit, a prepaid tasting menu seat, a card charge that looks doubled. Money that has left needs the person with the terminal records.
- The person asking has to get this past a finance departmentA card slip is not a VAT invoice. What a company diner needs on it, and why the service line has to be shown separately.
- Nobody is by the phone, and it is not only because you are closedThe phone goes unanswered mid service and again on the dark day. What is safe to answer at midnight, and what has to wait for a person.
- Deciding whether this is the right place for the occasionDress code, how long you get the table, whether a toddler works at eight, and whether three courses are compulsory on a set menu.
- The menu that travels is not the menu on the wallThe collection window, the platform that draws its own radius, and the shorter menu, because some dishes do not survive a box.
- Whether the wellington is on tonight is a question about the passA dish sells out by eight, the board changes daily, and an old menu still lists something dropped in March. Never say it is on tonight.
Questions
- Can it answer allergen questions if our menu is fully labelled?
- It can say what the menu labelling shows and no further. Labelling describes the recipe as written, and the guest is asking about the plate they will be served tonight, which depends on substitutions and on the kitchen. Set the refusal so every allergen question ends with the guest talking to a person.
- Can it take a booking?
- It does not write into a booking system. It answers the questions that come before one and then collects a name, an email and a message when somebody asks for a person, which arrives with you as an enquiry. For a table on a date, sending the guest to your booking link is the honest answer.
- What is worth indexing first?
- Kitchen service times including last orders, the group booking and deposit terms, and the access and parking information. Those three are the calls that interrupt a service, and none of them need anybody to look anything up.
- Will it invent a table if somebody pushes?
- Below the match threshold you set, a question never reaches the model at all and it returns the wording you wrote instead. For a restaurant the sensible setting is cautious, so an ambiguous booking question ends with your phone number rather than a guess.
Keep reading
- For a hotelRate inclusions, check in times, parking and room accessibility answer well. Live availability and a named reservation do not.
- For a holiday rentalWhat is provided, deposits and cancellation terms answer well. The exact address and the door code stay back until a booking exists.
- For a gymContract length and cancellation terms cause most gym complaints. Timetables, inductions and joining fees are worth automating.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.