Customer Service Automation for Restaurants and Caterers
A restaurant and a caterer can be one business with two different inboxes. The restaurant gets reservations and menu questions. The caterer gets enquiries with a headcount, a date, a delivery window and a dietary requirement, which is a longer conversation and a much larger order. Most operators run both, and the workflows share a spine and differ in two places: the deposit and the delivery.
This page is for restaurants and caterers. It starts with the six workflows worth automating first, each linked to its own page with a description you can paste into AeroChat. Then it covers the messages that arrive, the channels customers use, the public data, two recipes you can copy in today, and the plan a business of your size typically fits.
Workflows you can automate
Each one links to a page with the flow, the description to paste, what to connect and what you still decide. The reasons for this order are on the ranked restaurant and caterer workflows page.
- Take a table reservation from a WhatsApp message. Checks availability in your reservation system or sends your booking link, then confirms.
- Quote a catering order by headcount tier. Asks only for the details still missing.
- Hold a catering date or large table with a deposit link. Confirms the order once the deposit is paid.
- Answer menu, halal and dietary questions from what you publish. Sends every allergy question to the kitchen.
- Answer “where is my delivery” from your order system. Reads the status from your POS or online ordering system.
- Pass large groups and events to your team with the details collected. Date, time, headcount and budget per head, ready to confirm.
What automation does for a restaurant or caterer
- Catering enquiries quoted while the customer is still comparing. The right price for 40 guests, the missing questions asked, and the date held with a deposit, in one conversation.
- Dates you can rely on. A paid deposit holds the date. A verbal “ok, confirm” for a date three weeks away can disappear without notice.
- Less lunchtime “where is it” traffic. “Where is my delivery” is answered from your order system, on the channel the customer used.
The messages a restaurant or caterer gets
| Message | What the workflow does |
|---|---|
| “table for 4 tonight 7pm” | Checks your reservation system, creates the booking or sends your reservation link, and confirms |
| “do you have space for 18 people on the 14th” | Collects date, time, headcount and budget, offers the set menus, passes to a person |
| “are you halal”, “opening hours”, “vegetarian options?” | Answers from your published information. States the certification you hold, nothing more |
| “does the curry contain nuts”, “my son is allergic to shellfish” | Gives published menu facts only, says the kitchen will confirm, hands to a person |
| “lunch buffet for 40 people on the 8th” | Checks the date, quotes the 40-guest tier, asks for delivery time and address, takes a deposit |
| “can we make it 45 instead” | Re-prices at the new tier and sends a link for the difference |
| “where is my delivery” | Gives the delivery status. See WISMO |
The allergen line matters more than everything else on this page. The system must never infer whether a dish is safe for someone with an allergy, from the menu, the ingredient list or anywhere else. Cross-contamination in a working kitchen is not a data question, and a wrong answer can put someone in hospital. You set this as a handover rule in AeroChat and the system applies it, however many times the customer asks. See live chat handover.
Delivery
For a caterer, delivery is part of the product. The food arriving at 11.30 for a noon event is the service. AeroChat reads each order’s status from your POS or online ordering system, so “where is my delivery” gets an answer in the same chat. Square, Toast and Lightspeed Restaurant connect through their APIs. If a courier carries your orders and has a public API, AeroChat reads its tracking the same way. Payment and delivery are two separate connections: AeroChat sends the Airwallex payment link, and reads the order status from your own system. If you run catering deliveries with your own drivers from a Google Sheet, the workflow answers from the status your team enters there.
Channels customers use
WhatsApp for catering, by a wide margin, because a quote takes several rounds. Instagram brings enquiries for anything visual, such as cakes, dessert tables and event catering, often as a photo with “can you do this for 60 people”. AeroChat answers Instagram comments and direct messages. Web chat catches people comparing caterers on your site, where the first question is almost always price for a headcount. All of it lands in one AeroChat inbox.
What the data says
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| 73.3% | of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business |
| 72.4% | are more likely to buy from a business that offers messaging |
Source: Meta, State of Business Messaging. Kantar survey of 11,056 adults in 22 markets, commissioned by Meta, which owns WhatsApp, 2025.
We have not found an independent public study of restaurant no-shows that we can cite. The practical case for a deposit is simple: a customer who has paid to hold a catering date or a large table has a reason to turn up, or to tell you early when plans change.
Recipe: catering quote and deposit
Paste this into AeroChat (Skills, then Build from a description) and change the example values to yours.
Copy this into AeroChat
When a customer asks about catering, follow these steps.
- Find out the set or menu they want, the number of guests, the date, the delivery time and the delivery address. Ask only for what they have not already given.
- Check the date in our catering Google Calendar. If the date is marked full, offer the nearest available dates.
- Quote from our price tiers: Set A is US$14 a head for 20 to 39 guests and US$12.50 a head for 40 guests and above, with US$40 delivery (example prices, change them to ours). Show the total.
- Ask whether any guests have allergies or dietary needs. If they mention any allergy, say our kitchen will confirm and notify our team, without saying any dish is safe.
- To hold the date, confirm the 30% deposit amount and send a payment link.
- When it is paid, add the order to our catering calendar and our orders Sheet, confirm the order, date, time, address and balance due, and notify our team.
If they later change the headcount, re-price at the new tier and send a link for the difference. Orders above 150 guests go to our team. Reply in the customer’s language.
What to connect:
- Your catering menu and price tiers. Uploaded to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Google Calendar and Sheets. Many caterers run their event dates this way: a catering calendar with each order and the dates you mark full, and an orders Sheet with one row per order.
- Your Google account. Connect it when AeroChat asks, and approve the access. AeroChat sets up the connection to your catering calendar and orders Sheet from the recipe.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
- Your POS, for order status on the day. Square, Toast and Lightspeed Restaurant connect through their APIs, so “where is my order” is answered from the order itself.
- Your channels. WhatsApp and Instagram. Built in.
Recipe: large groups and dietary questions
Copy this into AeroChat
When someone asks to book for 10 or more people, ask the date, time, number of guests and budget per head. Send our group set menus from the knowledge base and say a US$20 deposit per head (example amount) holds a group booking. Pass the details to our team to confirm the table. For tables of fewer than 10, send our online reservation link. If anyone asks whether a dish contains an allergen, or whether it is safe for an allergy, share only the ingredients we publish for that dish, say the kitchen handles allergens and will confirm with them directly, and hand the conversation to a person straight away. If they ask about halal status, state our certification exactly as it appears in the knowledge base and do not add anything.
What to connect: your group menus, reservation link, halal certification details and published ingredients in the knowledge base. Nothing else is needed. To book smaller tables directly in the chat instead of sending a link, connect your reservation system: Eat App and ResDiary connect through their APIs. See the table reservations recipe.
After you paste a recipe, AeroChat builds it as a draft with a checklist: connect your accounts, upload your lists, then switch it on. Any keys are entered in the dashboard and never pass through the conversation.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What a business of your size typically invests
AeroChat plans are priced on AI responses, the individual replies the AI sends. A catering quote takes more replies than a reservation. A worked example: a caterer with about 10 enquiries a day, at around six replies each, uses roughly 1,800 responses a month.
- A single restaurant answering reservations and menu questions usually fits Starter: 500 AI responses a month and 3 team seats.
- A caterer taking deposits in the chat needs Growth, because payment links start there. It includes 2,000 AI responses a month and 10 seats, which suits the example above.
- A group with several outlets and a central kitchen usually fits Advanced: 5,000 AI responses a month and 25 seats.
Festive peaks such as Christmas, New Year and your local holiday seasons can be topped up with extra AI credit. What the investment does is quote and hold catering dates the same day the enquiry arrives, and keep allergen questions with your kitchen.
Quote your next catering order in the chat
Upload your price tiers, paste the catering recipe, and ask for 40 guests on a date you know is free. Then ask whether a dish is nut-free and check it hands you the question.
Related reading: payment link, WISMO (where is my order), live chat handover, WhatsApp chatbots for restaurants and food delivery, how a chat sale completes, step by step. All restaurant and caterer workflows. All industries.