When the dining room is full and the ticket rail is deep, the phone still rings. An Ai agent answers it, every time, so your host can stay at the door and your bartender can stay behind the bar.
Every restaurant owner in Whitefish knows the sound: the phone ringing under the noise of a full Friday dining room while your host is triple-sat and your servers are in the weeds. Whoever is calling wants something simple. Are you open? How long is the wait? Can you seat twelve after a day on the mountain? Do you do gluten-free? Each answer is easy. Getting a human free to give it during the rush is not. So the call rolls to voicemail, and a table of twelve walks into somebody else's dining room on Central Avenue.
Whitefish makes this harder than most towns because the demand comes in waves you cannot staff for. Powder days empty out at four and fill every bar in town by five. Summer brings the lake crowd, the Glacier traffic, and the Tuesday evening farmers market wave that washes through downtown looking for dinner. Then there is wedding season, when half the calls are rehearsal dinner and private event inquiries worth real money, and they land whenever the couple happens to be planning, which is usually 9pm on a Sunday.
An Ai agent trained on your restaurant answers all of it, on the phone line and in your website chat, in your voice. Hours, happy hour, the story behind the menu, whether the patio is dog friendly, where to park downtown, whether you take walk-ins. It works when you are closed, too, which is when a surprising share of tomorrow's covers get decided. Monday dark? The agent still books Saturday's birthday party.
Open hours, kitchen close time, happy hour, holiday schedules: answered instantly and consistently, even when the answer changed for the season.
Gluten-free, vegetarian, kids menu, huckleberry anything: it answers from your menu notes so guests arrive already sold.
Captures the party size, date, time, and contact info for big groups and sends it straight to your manager instead of your voicemail.
Rehearsal dinners, holiday parties, catering jobs: the agent asks your qualifying questions and delivers a complete lead you can price.
Answers gift card, special event, and live music questions so your regulars stay in the loop without anyone picking up a phone.
Anything that needs a human becomes a tidy text or email with everything you need to call back once, not phone tag.
We will tell you straight. The agent does not seat tables, bus them, or make a short-staffed Friday feel long-staffed in the kitchen. It cannot tell a caller the exact wait time at this exact moment unless you feed it that information, so we set it up to say what is honest and useful instead of guessing. It does not comp meals, negotiate prices, or make promises you have not approved, and when a caller has a complaint it gathers the details politely and hands the situation to you rather than trying to smooth it over with words you never said. It is a tireless phone answerer and lead catcher, not a manager.
The Test Drive at $249 setup and $99 a month: a website chat agent trained on what you sell, with Ai hosting and every future upgrade included. Test Drive is website chat only and does not answer the phone. Phone coverage starts at Manual Drive, $1,999 setup and $499 a month.A new website with the chat agent built in comes as part of Automatic Drive at $3,999 setup and $999 a month, or Maximum Overdrive at $4,999 setup and $1,499 a month. Every package starts with a free basic demo built on your business basics, before any payment. Compare everything on the Whitefish packages page.
It captures the request with the name, party size, date, time, and phone number, then sends it wherever you want it: your email, your calendar, or your reservation system's flow. If you use an online booking platform, the agent points guests to it and still catches everyone who would rather just call.
Whatever you want it to say. Many owners have it share general guidance, like which nights run busiest and when the room usually opens up, and invite the guest to come put their name in. It never invents a specific wait time it cannot know.
Seasonal pressure is exactly the problem it solves. Test Drive is $249 setup and $99 a month for a website chat agent trained on your business, with Ai hosting and every future upgrade included. Test Drive is website chat only and does not answer the phone. Phone coverage starts at Manual Drive, $1,999 setup and $499 a month.
Call (406) 420-8181 and our own Ai receptionist answers, then picture it trained on your menu. Free basic demo first, always. You can also sit down with the person who builds it, no pressure. Restaurants down the valley are catching on too, starting with the Ai Receptionist Columbia Falls crowd on the way to Glacier.