An AI receptionist for your café
The phone rings when the queue is out of the door. The agent answers, tells people your hours, and writes down the catering order so you can call back after the rush.
The problem on a busy day
In a café the person who would answer the phone is on the till or the coffee machine. Most calls are the same few questions, plus the odd order that is worth real money: a platter for an office, a birthday cake.
What the agent does
- Answers the calls you miss, in your café’s name, with your number kept through call forwarding.
- Tells callers your opening hours and whether you are open right now, including closed days.
- Takes order and booking requests (catering, cakes, table for a group) with the details you ask for.
- Answers your saved questions about parking, dogs, gluten-free options or seating, and takes a message for anything it does not know.
- Starts from the restaurant, bar and café starter pack.
It answers only from the facts you save. If it does not know, it takes a message; it never invents prices, times or availability. If a caller asks whether it is an AI, it says so and never claims to be a person.
How a call can go
Agent: Hello, Bean & Barrow café, how can I help?
Caller: Do you do sandwich platters for offices?
Agent: I can take a catering request for the team. What day is it for, and how many people?
Caller: Thursday, twelve people.
Agent: Thursday for twelve. Can I take your name, company and a number? The team will call you back to confirm.
An illustration of how a call can go, written by us. It is not a recording of a customer’s call.
Setting it up
- Create a Receptionist workspace and give it your website. It can read the site into a draft of your business facts for you to check.
- Choose the starter pack for your kind of business. It adds the usual reasons people call, the questions to ask before a booking and FAQ questions with blank answers for you to fill in. It never overwrites what you wrote.
- Save your opening hours as a weekly timetable, with one daily break and your closed days.
- Keep your own number: dial the forwarding codes shown on screen on your own phone, then press “Test my forwarding”.
- Write an opening message that says it is an AI assistant (in the EU this has been required since 2 August 2026), then switch it on. Every call, booking request and message appears in the app, and a morning report arrives at 08:00 London time when there were calls.
What it does not do
- It does not quote prices you have not saved.
- It does not take payments on the call; it can text your own payment link if you switch that on.
- It gives allergen information only from what you have written; anything else becomes a message for you.
What it costs
Receptionist: your first month is free with no card; then Solo £39 or Business £79 a month (exact allowances are confirmed before activation). Outbound calling: 21p per connected minute from prepaid credit, £7 free to start. Tax may be added where applicable.
Try it before you set anything up
On the FoxEra Calls homepage you can talk to one of our agents in your browser for 60 seconds. No account, no phone number, nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth it for a small café?
Count your missed calls for a fortnight first (our guide shows how). The first month is free, so you can compare with real calls.
Can I switch it off when we are quiet?
Yes. Forwarding is set on your own phone and can be turned off with one code.