Meet Basil
The phone still rings.
Now something answers it.
Basil is the voice assistant built into Restaurant Pro. It answers your phone, takes orders off your own menu, knows your hours, and checks in with guests after a meal — with their consent. It says it’s an AI on every call, and it hands you the ones that need you.
Free to claim your restaurant. A handled call costs under 20¢.
What Basil does
Answers every call, on the second ring
The calls you miss at 7pm on a Friday are the ones that cost most. Basil picks up, and says it's an assistant — every time, before anything else.
Takes orders from your real menu
Your prices, your items, what's out today. It reads the same menu your page shows, so a caller and a browser are never quoted different numbers.
Answers what people actually ring about
Are you open. Do you have parking. Is the biryani spicy. Can you do twelve on Saturday. It knows your hours and your menu, and hands the call to a person the moment it isn't sure.
Calls guests after a meal — if they said yes
A short call the next day: how was it, would you come back. You hear about the cold curry before a review does. Only to guests who agreed to it, once, and never again if they say no.
What Basil will not do
Handing over your phone means trusting what a machine says to your regulars. These are rules in the software, not promises in a brochure.
- Pretend to be a person. It says it's an AI at the start of every call, inbound and outbound.
- Quote a price that isn't on your menu, or invent a dish you don't serve.
- Promise a table, a time or a delivery you haven't said it can promise.
- Call anyone who didn't agree to be called. Consent is recorded against the number before it is ever dialled.
- Call outside 9am–6pm in the guest's own timezone, or on a Sunday.
- Call again after someone says stop. That is permanent, across every restaurant on the platform.
- Guess about an allergy. It says what the menu lists and puts a person on.
How it works
- Forward your numberKeep the number on your door and your napkins. Forward it always, only after hours, or only when the line is busy — your choice, changed whenever you like.
- Tell Basil what's trueIt already has your menu, prices and hours from your page. You add the things only you know: where to park, which table is quiet, that you close early on Christmas Eve.
- Listen to the callsEvery call is transcribed on your dashboard. What people asked that you don't answer becomes a list you can fix in a minute.
About calling your guests
The most useful thing Basil does is also the easiest to get wrong, so it is the most tightly bound. A guest is asked, once, at checkout, whether they’d take a short call about how the meal went. Only a yes is ever dialled. That yes is recorded against the number before the first call, business hours only, in their timezone, never on a Sunday.
“Take me off your list” ends it permanently — not for that restaurant, for every restaurant on Restaurant Pro. We would rather lose the feedback than earn a reputation for pestering people, and a marketplace that lets one restaurant burn a diner has burned them for everyone.
What a call costs
Answering services charge by the call and bill you whether or not it was worth taking. Basil runs on metered voice, so a call costs what a call costs.
| A handled call, typical | under $0.20 |
|---|---|
| Telephony and voice, 65 seconds average | about $0.12 |
| Your own dedicated number | about $2 a month |
| An answering service, per call | $1.50 – $3.00 |
| A part-time receptionist | $1,800+ a month |
Separate from the flat 3% on orders placed through Restaurant Pro. Nothing is billed while Basil is in early access, and you will be told the rate before it is.
One assistant, or three hundred
Basil is the same assistant for a single dining room and for a group with locations across the city — each one with its own number, its own menu, its own hours, its own voice on the line. Nothing to install, no handset to buy, no per-seat licence. Add a location and it answers that phone too. It sits on the same platform as 367,318 restaurants across 15 markets.
Claim your restaurant to switch Basil on
Claiming is free and takes about two minutes. Basil is in early access: nothing is billed yet, and you will be told the rate before anything is.
Claim your restaurant — free