AI for restaurants on Long Island, for the menu questions, the catering requests and the orders
A restaurant answers the same handful of questions all day: are you open, do you deliver, where do I park, do you cater, what’s gluten free. We set up an AI chat for your site and Instagram, online ordering on your own website, and review requests after each order, in English and Spanish, for restaurants in Nassau, Suffolk and NYC.
On the call we look at where your week goes and suggest a next step. If you need a full assessment, we quote it in writing before any work starts.
What eats a restaurant owner’s day
The phone during the rush
Friday at 7 PM the host is seating a table, the kitchen is behind, and the phone rings with “Are you open?” Every call during service pulls someone off the floor.
Catering requests buried in DMs
A party of 40 for next Saturday arrives as an Instagram message at midnight. If nobody reads it until Tuesday, the customer has already booked another caterer.
Delivery app commissions
Every order through a third-party app pays the app a cut. Your regulars would order straight from you, and nothing on your site or your Instagram tells them how.
Menu questions, in two languages
Spice level, allergens, what comes with the plate, whether the special is still on. Some of your customers ask in Spanish, and the answers live in one person’s head.
Closed days nobody hears about
A snow day or a private party closes the dining room. The site says one thing, the voicemail another, and a family drives over to a locked door.
Reviews diners forget to leave
People mean to review a good meal. By the time they get home, it slips their mind, and nobody sent them the link.
What’s available for restaurants
Online ordering is built and ready for restaurants on Long Island. Here is what each part does.
- Ordering on your own site. Customers order and pay on your website, with the money going to your own payment account. No delivery app takes a per-order commission. Card processing fees from the payment provider still apply.
- Order alerts go to you or straight to the kitchen, for pickup or for delivery with your own drivers.
- The menu in English and Spanish, written by a person who speaks both. Spanish is Santiago’s first language.
- An AI chat on your site and in your Instagram DMs, for hours, menu and catering questions, answering from your own menu and policies.
- Review requests after the order, one ask and one reminder, sent to every customer.
More on ordering and payments on the services page.
What to automate first at a restaurant
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The questions you answer every night
Hours, holiday closings, parking, delivery area, whether you take walk-ins. Written once, answered by the chat on your site and in your DMs, in the customer’s language.
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Catering requests, collected in full
The assistant asks for the date, the headcount, pickup or delivery and a phone number, then files the request as a lead with all of it attached. You send the quote. Nobody loses a party of 40 in a DM thread.
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Direct online ordering for your regulars
A link in your Instagram bio and on your Google profile goes to your own ordering page. Regulars order without the app, and you keep the customer’s details.
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A review ask after every order
Two hours after you mark the order done, one short message with your Google review link. One reminder if it stays unopened, then it stops.
A week of restaurant questions, sorted
Here is how the assistant splits the messages a restaurant gets in a normal week.
- Answered
- Hours and holiday closings, parking, the delivery area, what’s on the menu, the dishes you marked gluten free or vegetarian, whether you cater, the ordering link.
- Collected
- Catering requests with the date, headcount, pickup or delivery and a phone number. Large pickup orders for an office or a team.
- Passed to you
- Serious allergy questions, complaints, refunds, press, job applications and anything the menu file doesn’t cover.
What stays with a person
- Allergy promises. The assistant repeats the allergen notes you wrote, word for word, and tells the customer to confirm with staff for a serious allergy. It never calls a dish safe on its own.
- Catering quotes and menus for events. The assistant gathers the details. You set the price.
- Table reservations and your POS stay with the systems you use now. The assistant answers the reservation question with the link or phone number you give it.
- Complaints about an order go straight to you, with the conversation attached.
Common mistakes when restaurants add AI
A chatbot guessing about allergens
A generic restaurant chatbot fills gaps with confident guesses. Ours answers only from the menu and notes you approved, and says when it doesn’t know.
A menu the bot never hears about
Holiday hours change, a special sells out, a price goes up. The assistant reads one facts file, so one update changes every answer on the site and in the DMs.
Paying an app for orders from your own regulars
Put an “Order direct” link where regulars already look: your Instagram bio and your Google profile. Keep the apps for the customers they bring you.
A Spanish menu run through a translator
Machine translation turns dish names into nonsense. Your Spanish menu gets written by a person and checked against how your customers talk.
Every order alert on the owner’s phone
When each order pings one personal phone, the kitchen waits on the owner. Alerts go to the kitchen, to you, or to both.
Asking only happy diners for reviews
Google’s rules forbid choosing who gets asked based on how the meal went. The system asks everyone and never filters.
How FlowWays sets it up for your restaurant
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The free 20-minute call
You tell us how a normal week runs: the calls during service, the catering requests, the app orders, the questions in Spanish. We name the fixes worth doing first.
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Your menu and facts, in both languages
Dishes, prices, allergens as you word them, hours, delivery area and catering basics. The chat and the ordering page read from the same place.
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Ordering connected to your own accounts
Payments go to your own payment account. The Instagram connection runs through FlowWays OS, where you see orders, leads and messages together.
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Tested on a real menu, then live
We place test orders and ask the chat the questions your diners ask, in both languages, before launch. You get a fixed written quote first and a handover document after.
Try it yourself
DM @flowways.dev on Instagram (opens in a new tab) on Instagram, or open the chat on this page, and watch the AI answer. Both answer from FlowWays’ own notes, the same way a client’s assistant answers from the client’s.
Ask it what your own customers ask you: what you offer, whether you speak Spanish, how booking works, what something costs. Watch where it answers and where it stops. When the notes hold no answer, it says so and offers you a way to reach Santiago.
Example conversation
- Customer
- Do you do catering for about 40 people on the 18th?
- Assistant
- We do catering. To get you a quote, is it pickup or delivery, and what time do you need the food?
- Customer
- Delivery to Levittown, around 1 PM.
- Assistant
- Got it: 40 people, the 18th, delivery to Levittown at 1 PM. What’s the best number to reach you? The owner sends the quote.
Written for this page with a made-up restaurant, to show how a catering request gets collected in full. It is a made-up example. No real customer wrote it.
Restaurants in Nassau, Suffolk and NYC
We’re based in Hicksville and work in person with restaurants across Nassau County, Suffolk County and New York City, and remotely anywhere else. A bilingual menu and a chat answering in Spanish help wherever many of your diners speak Spanish first.
Looking for an AI receptionist for your restaurant phone? The phone assistant answers, says it’s automated, and gives hours and the ordering link. During a rush, a missed call gets a text back pointing to your menu.
Questions owners ask
Does an AI chatbot for restaurants answer menu questions correctly?
It answers from your menu and your notes, and nothing else. When a question falls outside them, it says so and passes it to you.
Is the online ordering free of commission?
No delivery app takes a cut of each order. Card processing fees from the payment provider still apply, and our build is a fixed written quote after the free call.
Do I still need DoorDash or Uber Eats?
Keep them if they bring you new customers. Direct ordering gives your regulars a way to order from you without the app’s cut.
Does it take table reservations?
No. Reservations and your POS stay with the systems you use now. The assistant answers the reservation question with the link or number you give it.
Does it work in Spanish?
Yes. The menu, the ordering page and the chat all work in English and Spanish, written by a person and checked before launch.
What happens to a catering request at midnight?
The assistant asks for the date, headcount, pickup or delivery and a phone number, and files it as a lead. You read it in the morning with everything you need to quote.
Do you run our Instagram or post for us?
No. We set up the assistant answering your DMs. Your posts, your ads and the account stay with you.
Related guides and services
- The hub page: AI for small business on Long Island, with the full list of what we build.
- Review requests, missed call text back and business automation for the weekly reports.
- The other guides: AI for auto shops, AI for salons and barbers, AI for contractors.
Hicksville, NY · Nassau, Suffolk & NYC
How many calls during service
are about hours and the menu?
Tell us how a Friday night goes. We’ll show you which questions the assistant takes off your staff and where direct ordering fits.