AI phone assistant for caterers
A catering enquiry is a date, a headcount and a venue before it is anything else. Tel-Agent takes all three while the kitchen works.
- Date and headcount
- Venue
- Dietary requirements
Why catering enquiries arrive while the kitchen is busy
Catering enquiries come in during service, from people planning something months away. They are not urgent, which is exactly why they get missed - and an enquiry that goes unanswered for two days is an enquiry that has already been quoted by somebody else.
How the AI receptionist handles a catering enquiry
It answers while the kitchen keeps working.
It takes the date first, because it decides whether anything else matters.
It takes an approximate headcount - a range is normal this early.
It asks about the venue and whether there is a kitchen on site.
It takes the type of event and rough dietary numbers, and a quote can be prepared from a written note.
What the agent is told to ask
Written by you, in your own words, as the assistant’s instructions.
What a catering phone assistant should and should not do
What it does
- Answers enquiries that arrive during service
- Takes the date, the headcount and the venue
- Records whether there is a kitchen on site
- Collects dietary numbers early enough to matter
- Keeps enquiry data on the business's own machine
What it never does
- Quote a per-head price without the detail
- Confirm a date is available
- Design a menu or suggest dishes
- Guarantee an allergen-free service
- Send client data to a third-party server
Questions
Can it quote per head?
No. A catering price depends on the venue, the kitchen, the staffing and the menu, and a number given on a first call is one the client remembers when the real quote arrives higher.
Why is the date asked first?
Because it is the only answer that can end the conversation. A date already fully booked makes everything else academic, and finding that out on the first call saves both sides a week.
What about dietary requirements?
Numbers are taken early - how many vegetarian, how many with allergies - because they change the quote. The detail comes later, with a person, and no allergen guarantee is ever given by the assistant.
Does it handle weddings differently?
The type of event is asked because it changes almost everything: timings, staffing, service style and how far ahead the booking sits. It routes rather than decides.
Can it book a tasting?
It proposes and confirms times. Tastings are usually the point at which a person takes over anyway, so getting one in the diary is most of what the first call is for.
Does the EU AI Act allow an AI to answer an event enquiry?
Yes, under Article 50 of Regulation 2024/1689, which asks that the caller be told they are speaking to a machine - that line belongs in the greeting you configure. Nothing about this work falls under Annex III, the list of high-risk uses. The distinction the Act draws is between assisting and deciding, and this agent assists: it never decides who gets a table or a room. Austria's KI-Servicestelle at RTR publishes the same reading of the transparency duty.
Who is the data controller for what a caller to a caterer says on the phone?
You are. An event enquiry is ordinary personal data, plus whatever a guest volunteers about an allergy, and Tel-Agent is self-hosted with your own model keys, so the recording, the transcript and the record it writes stay on your server and never reach Dpro GmbH. There is no processor agreement to sign with us because we never receive the data, and the source is AGPL-3.0, so you can check that rather than take our word for it.
Can a caterer run this in the United States?
There is no single federal AI statute to comply with, but a phone line carries older rules. The TCPA governs automated outbound calls, and consent to record is set state by state. Consent to record is set state by state, and California and Illinois among others want every party to agree. Running the software yourself makes you the caller of record, so the disclosure and the recording switch are yours to set.
Not usable yet. The day it answers a real call will be a release, not a newsletter.
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