If you run a restaurant, café or venue, you already know the questions. They arrive by phone, Instagram and WhatsApp, often during the busiest hour of service. A well-built assistant can answer most of them instantly, from information you control, and hand the rest to a person.
Here are five that come up again and again.
1. "Are you open now?"
Opening hours sound simple until you add holidays, Ramadan timings, private events and a kitchen that closes before the doors do. An assistant reading from one up-to-date schedule answers correctly every time, in Arabic or English, at 2 a.m. as well as 2 p.m.
2. "Do you have a table for four on Friday?"
This is the question that matters most, because it is a booking waiting to happen. Connected to your reservation system, an assistant can check real availability and either book the table or send the guest straight to the booking page with the date already filled in. Without that connection, it should say so honestly and offer the link, never guess.
3. "Do you have vegetarian, gluten-free or kids' options?"
Guests ask about dietary needs before they commit. If your menu is stored with clear labels, the assistant can answer precisely and point to the dishes. One firm rule: for allergies, it should give what the menu states and advise the guest to confirm with staff. It must never promise that a dish is safe.
4. "Can I book the place for a private event?"
Event enquiries are valuable and often lost in a busy inbox. The assistant can collect the basics (date, number of guests, type of event, contact details with the guest's consent) and pass a tidy summary to whoever handles events. The guest gets a fast reply; you get a lead you can act on.
5. "Where are you, and is there parking?"
Location, parking, entrances, accessibility and dress code are small questions that create big frustration when nobody answers. They are also the easiest to automate, because the answers rarely change.
What makes it work
- One source of truth. The assistant answers only from information you approve: hours, menu, policies. Change it once, and every answer updates.
- Honest limits. When it doesn't know, it says so and offers a person. That builds more trust than a confident wrong answer.
- A clear handover. Complaints, special requests and anything unusual go to a human, with the conversation attached.
- Both languages. Guests write the way they speak. The assistant should reply in the language they used.
The short version
An assistant won't replace your host or your manager. It takes the repeated questions off their phones so they can look after the guests in front of them. Start with these five, and you will cover a large share of what guests ask before they book. More on how Ftoosh approaches this in Hospitality.