Dinealog

I’ve spent 14 out of the last 36 months IN a restaurant. 12 of those were at my own restaurant in Mexico, circa 2024.

The other two months are more recent - For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been at a vegetarian restaurant most evenings. I’m not vegetarian. I barely eat there. I am there because we we run Dinealog on their phones, and the fastest way to learn anything is to sit in the room while it happens.

So I’d sit, and watch.

Dinner rush is a pleasure to watch, the place fills up. Guests waiting to be seated, more waiting on takeout, and the phone going the whole time - plus the DoorDash and Uber Eats tablet chiming. Staff running in and out of the kitchen. One or two people trying to cover all of it. Most nights a third of the calls hit inside the same short window, right at the peak, and nobody answers them. Whoever called just orders from someone else.

We finally put a number on it for these two: about $30 a ticket, roughly ten missed calls a day. Call it a hundred grand a year, give or take, walking out because nobody could pick up the phone. The leak is real and it happens every single night, most restaurants don’t know it.

That’s the whole reason Dinealog exists. It answers the calls - all of them, at the same time, takes orders, books tables, tells someone when you close. The staff goes back to the floor.

We also found some people don’t want to talk to a machine. I get it. Same thing happened with QR menus and people came around.

The part I didn’t expect was how hilarious it gets. Two I caught on my screen LIVE while sitting there:

Someone called and asked when the war in Iran would end and whether the US would land a ceasefire. The agent told them, politely, that it could only help with orders and questions about the restaurant.

Another tried to get it to cough up its system prompt and the week’s sales numbers. Same answer. It just kept asking what they’d like to order.

If you own or operate a restaurant, we’ll run Dinealog for a week at no cost to you.

prithvi@dinealog.com