Five Restaurants, Five Deployments: AI Phone Answering in the Wild
King Do Seafood, Yuan's Garden, Dimsum Caddy, RENS Cafe, and Lao Cai each run DineCall AI on their own phone line. Here is what each deployment actually does.
Five restaurants run DineCall AI on their own phone line. None of them have the same setup. That is the point: the platform adapts to what each restaurant actually needs, not the other way around.
King Do Seafood — 100+ phone orders taken
King Do Seafood is a Cantonese seafood and family-style restaurant in Surrey, BC. Their primary pain point was a busy line: someone had to stand at the front desk just to answer the phone, and during dinner service the line was frequently busy. Customers complained.
Their DineCall deployment is phone-first. The AI answers every call, takes the full food order, and confirms the pickup time on the call. Orders land directly on the kitchen board. The restaurant kept their phone number — the AI simply picks up the same line customers have always called.
King Do also runs a bilingual (English / 中文) photo menu and online pickup ordering on their own domain, kingdo.ca. The AI and the online ordering share the same menu, so prices and availability are consistent across both channels.
Yuan's Garden — booking calls that a voicemail cannot handle
Yuan's Garden 隨園 is an award-winning Jiangsu-Zhejiang, Shanghai and Huaiyang kitchen in Richmond, BC. Their phone challenge is different: most calls are not orders — they are table bookings. And a booking is harder than a voicemail.
Their AI checks real table availability, captures the party's name and size, handles the negotiation ("can you do 7 instead of 7:30?"), and confirms the booking on the call. Every confirmed reservation lands on the reservation board instantly — the host stand always matches the phone.
Yuan's Garden also has a DineCall-built website with a bilingual online menu. Their Nanjing-style salted duck took Critics' Choice at the 2024 Chinese Restaurant Awards, and the same year they were nominated for Best Casual Chinese at the Vancouver Restaurant Awards — information the AI can answer questions about.
Dimsum Caddy — the question call
Dimsum Caddy is not an easy restaurant to describe in one sentence: elevated dim sum, a proper bar, and indoor golf simulator bays in Richmond, BC. Their kitchen runs until 12:30 AM. The result is a restaurant that gets a high volume of question calls — "are you open Tuesday?", "how late does the kitchen go?", "how do the golf bays work?"
Their AI is briefed on the actual details — the Tuesday closure, the 12:30 AM kitchen, what a simulator bay is — so it answers those questions on the call instead of letting them go to voicemail. Calls that need a person, like a bay booking or a private event, go straight to the team.
DineCall also designed and built their website, dimsumcaddy.com. One platform for the site and the phone line means one consistent story: what guests read online and what the AI tells them on the phone are the same.
RENS Cafe — one line, two jobs
RENS Cafe & Bistro is a Thai fine-dining restaurant on Hastings Street in Burnaby, BC. Their line handles both orders and bookings — and it is the same call, the same AI, on the same number.
The AI distinguishes between the two: a caller ordering dinner is walked through the menu and confirms the total on the call. A caller booking a table has the date, time, party size and name captured and confirmed. Requests outside the AI's brief — catering, a private event — go directly to the team.
RENS also runs online pickup ordering at renscafe.dinecall.ai. Phone orders and online orders both land on the same kitchen board.
Lao Cai — two languages, same line
Lao Cai Chinese Cuisine 老蔡食府 is a Xi'an hand-pulled noodle and dumpling kitchen on Marine Drive. Their challenge is the language mix: the next caller might order in English, the one after in 中文, sometimes both inside one sentence ("liang-pi" dropped into an English order).
The AI detects the caller's language within a word or two and answers in it — switching mid-call if the caller does. Dish names work in both languages: 油潑麵 and "spicy hot-oil noodle" land as the same ticket. Same line, both jobs, both languages.
Lao Cai also runs bilingual online pickup ordering. The hands that pull noodles and pleat dumplings all day do not need to stop to answer the phone.
What they have in common
None of these restaurants replaced their phone number, their POS, or their kitchen routine. DineCall plugs into what already works. The AI picks up the same line customers have always called, and can hold several calls at once when the room is full. Every confirmed order and reservation lands on the same live board the team is already watching.